diff --git a/site-cookbooks/kosmos_kvm/files/create_vm b/site-cookbooks/kosmos_kvm/files/create_vm
index 4702bb6..bdb0b81 100644
--- a/site-cookbooks/kosmos_kvm/files/create_vm
+++ b/site-cookbooks/kosmos_kvm/files/create_vm
@@ -1,12 +1,17 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 set -e
 
-if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
-    echo 'USAGE: create_vm VMNAME'
+if [[ $# -lt 3 ]] ; then
+    cat <<-EOF
+USAGE (RAM in megabytes)
+
+create_vm VMNAME RAM CPUS
+EOF
     exit 1
 fi
 VMNAME=$1
-
+RAM=$2
+CPUS=$3
 
 # Directory where image files will be stored
 IMAGE_DIR=/var/lib/libvirt/images
@@ -67,8 +72,8 @@ fi
 # setting --os-variant to ubuntu20.04 and ubuntu18.04 breaks SSH and networking
 virt-install \
   --name cloudinit-1 \
-  --ram 2048 \
-  --vcpus 1\
+  --ram "$RAM" \
+  --vcpus "$CPUS" \
   --cpu host \
   --arch x86_64 \
   --os-type linux \