1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"UTF-8"?>
3 <html xmlns=
"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
10 Bhyve is a FreeBSD hypervisor. It first appeared in FreeBSD
10.0. However, it's
11 recommended to keep tracking FreeBSD
10-STABLE to make sure all new features
12 of bhyve are supported.
14 In order to enable bhyve on your FreeBSD host, you'll need to load the
<code>vmm
</code>
15 kernel module. Additionally,
<code>if_tap
</code> and
<code>if_bridge
</code> modules
16 should be loaded for networking support. Also,
<span class=
"since">since
3.2.0</span> the
17 <code>virt-host-validate(
1)
</code> supports the bhyve host validation and could be
22 $ virt-host-validate bhyve
23 BHYVE: Checking for vmm module : PASS
24 BHYVE: Checking for if_tap module : PASS
25 BHYVE: Checking for if_bridge module : PASS
26 BHYVE: Checking for nmdm module : PASS
31 Additional information on bhyve could be obtained on
<a href=
"http://bhyve.org/">bhyve.org
</a>.
34 <h2><a id=
"uri">Connections to the Bhyve driver
</a></h2>
36 The libvirt bhyve driver is a single-instance privileged driver. Some sample
41 bhyve:///system (local access)
42 bhyve+unix:///system (local access)
43 bhyve+ssh://root@example.com/system (remote access, SSH tunnelled)
46 <h2><a id=
"exconfig">Example guest domain XML configurations
</a></h2>
48 <h3>Example config
</h3>
50 The bhyve driver in libvirt is in its early stage and under active development. So it supports
51 only limited number of features bhyve provides.
55 Note: in older libvirt versions, only a single network device and a single
56 disk device were supported per-domain. However,
57 <span class=
"since">since
1.2.6</span> the libvirt bhyve driver supports
62 Note: the Bhyve driver in libvirt will boot whichever device is first. If you
63 want to install from CD, put the CD device first. If not, put the root HDD
68 Note: Only the SATA bus is supported. Only
<code>cdrom
</code>- and
69 <code>disk
</code>-type disks are supported.
73 <domain type='bhyve'
>
74 <name
>bhyve
</name
>
75 <uuid
>df3be7e7-a104-
11e3-aeb0-
50e5492bd3dc
</uuid
>
76 <memory
>219136</memory
>
77 <currentMemory
>219136</currentMemory
>
78 <vcpu
>1</vcpu
>
80 <type
>hvm
</type
>
86 <clock offset='utc'/
>
87 <on_poweroff
>destroy
</on_poweroff
>
88 <on_reboot
>restart
</on_reboot
>
89 <on_crash
>destroy
</on_crash
>
91 <disk type='file'
>
92 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
93 <source file='/path/to/bhyve_freebsd.img'/
>
94 <target dev='hda' bus='sata'/
>
96 <disk type='file' device='cdrom'
>
97 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
98 <source file='/path/to/cdrom.iso'/
>
99 <target dev='hdc' bus='sata'/
>
102 <interface type='bridge'
>
103 <model type='virtio'/
>
104 <source
bridge=
"virbr0"/
>
110 <p>(The
<disk
> sections may be swapped in order to install from
111 <em>cdrom.iso
</em>.)
</p>
113 <h3>Example config (Linux guest)
</h3>
116 Note the addition of
<bootloader
>.
120 <domain type='bhyve'
>
121 <name
>linux_guest
</name
>
122 <uuid
>df3be7e7-a104-
11e3-aeb0-
50e5492bd3dc
</uuid
>
123 <memory
>131072</memory
>
124 <currentMemory
>131072</currentMemory
>
125 <vcpu
>1</vcpu
>
126 <bootloader
>/usr/local/sbin/grub-bhyve
</bootloader
>
128 <type
>hvm
</type
>
134 <clock offset='utc'/
>
135 <on_poweroff
>destroy
</on_poweroff
>
136 <on_reboot
>restart
</on_reboot
>
137 <on_crash
>destroy
</on_crash
>
139 <disk type='file' device='disk'
>
140 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
141 <source file='/path/to/guest_hdd.img'/
>
142 <target dev='hda' bus='sata'/
>
144 <disk type='file' device='cdrom'
>
145 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
146 <source file='/path/to/cdrom.iso'/
>
147 <target dev='hdc' bus='sata'/
>
150 <interface type='bridge'
>
151 <model type='virtio'/
>
152 <source
bridge=
"virbr0"/
>
158 <h3>Example config (Linux UEFI guest, VNC, tablet)
</h3>
160 <p>This is an example to boot into Fedora
25 installation:
</p>
163 <domain type='bhyve'
>
164 <name
>fedora_uefi_vnc_tablet
</name
>
165 <memory unit='G'
>4</memory
>
166 <vcpu
>2</vcpu
>
168 <type
>hvm
</type
>
169 <b><loader readonly=
"yes
" type=
"pflash
">/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd
</loader
></b>
175 <clock offset='utc'/
>
176 <on_poweroff
>destroy
</on_poweroff
>
177 <on_reboot
>restart
</on_reboot
>
178 <on_crash
>destroy
</on_crash
>
180 <disk type='file' device='cdrom'
>
181 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
182 <source file='/path/to/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-
25-
1.3.iso'/
>
183 <target dev='hdc' bus='sata'/
>
186 <disk type='file' device='disk'
>
187 <driver name='file' type='raw'/
>
188 <source file='/path/to/linux_uefi.img'/
>
189 <target dev='hda' bus='sata'/
>
191 <interface type='bridge'
>
192 <model type='virtio'/
>
193 <source bridge=
"virbr0
"/
>
195 <serial type=
"nmdm
">
196 <source master=
"/dev/nmdm0A
" slave=
"/dev/nmdm0B
"/
>
198 <b><graphics type='vnc' port='
5904'
>
199 <listen type='address' address='
127.0.0.1'/
>
201 <controller type='usb' model='nec-xhci'/
>
202 <input type='tablet' bus='usb'/
></b>
207 <p>Please refer to the
<a href=
"#uefi">UEFI
</a> section for a more detailed explanation.
</p>
209 <h2><a id=
"usage">Guest usage / management
</a></h2>
211 <h3><a id=
"console">Connecting to a guest console
</a></h3>
214 Guest console connection is supported through the
<code>nmdm
</code> device. It could be enabled by adding
215 the following to the domain XML (
<span class=
"since">Since
1.2.4</span>):
221 <serial
type=
"nmdm">
222 <source
master=
"/dev/nmdm0A" slave=
"/dev/nmdm0B"/
>
228 <p>Make sure to load the
<code>nmdm
</code> kernel module if you plan to use that.
</p>
231 Then
<code>virsh console
</code> command can be used to connect to the text console
234 <p><b>NB:
</b> Some versions of bhyve have a bug that prevents guests from booting
235 until the console is opened by a client. This bug was fixed in FreeBSD
236 <a href=
"http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/262884">r262884
</a>. If
237 an older version is used, one either has to open a console manually with
<code>virsh console
</code>
238 to let a guest boot or start a guest using:
</p>
240 <pre>start --console domname
</pre>
242 <p><b>NB:
</b> A bootloader configured to require user interaction will prevent
243 the domain from starting (and thus
<code>virsh console
</code> or
<code>start
244 --console
</code> from functioning) until the user interacts with it manually on
245 the VM host. Because users typically do not have access to the VM host,
246 interactive bootloaders are unsupported by libvirt.
<em>However,
</em> if you happen to
247 run into this scenario and also happen to have access to the Bhyve host
248 machine, you may select a boot option and allow the domain to finish starting
249 by using an alternative terminal client on the VM host to connect to the
250 domain-configured null modem device. One example (assuming
251 <code>/dev/nmdm0B
</code> is configured as the slave end of the domain serial
254 <pre>cu -l /dev/nmdm0B
</pre>
256 <h3><a id=
"xmltonative">Converting from domain XML to Bhyve args
</a></h3>
259 The
<code>virsh domxml-to-native
</code> command can preview the actual
260 <code>bhyve
</code> commands that will be executed for a given domain.
261 It outputs two lines, the first line is a
<code>bhyveload
</code> command and
262 the second is a
<code>bhyve
</code> command.
265 <p>Please note that the
<code>virsh domxml-to-native
</code> doesn't do any
266 real actions other than printing the command, for example, it doesn't try to
267 find a proper TAP interface and create it, like what is done when starting
268 a domain; and always returns
<code>tap0
</code> for the network interface. So
269 if you're going to run these commands manually, most likely you might want to
273 # virsh -c
"bhyve:///system" domxml-to-native --format bhyve-argv --xml /path/to/bhyve.xml
274 /usr/sbin/bhyveload -m
214 -d /home/user/vm1.img vm1
275 /usr/sbin/bhyve -c
2 -m
214 -A -I -H -P -s
0:
0,hostbridge -s
3:
0,virtio-net,tap0,mac=
52:
54:
00:
5d:
74:e3 -s
2:
0,virtio-blk,/home/user/vm1.img -s
1,lpc -l com1,/dev/nmdm0A vm1
278 <h3><a id=
"zfsvolume">Using ZFS volumes
</a></h3>
280 <p>It's possible to use ZFS volumes as disk devices
<span class=
"since">since
1.2.8</span>.
281 An example of domain XML device entry for that will look like:
</p>
285 <disk type='volume' device='disk'
>
286 <source pool='zfspool' volume='vol1'/
>
287 <target dev='vdb' bus='virtio'/
>
291 <p>Please refer to the
<a href=
"storage.html">Storage documentation
</a> for more details on storage
294 <h3><a id=
"grubbhyve">Using grub2-bhyve or Alternative Bootloaders
</a></h3>
296 <p>It's possible to boot non-FreeBSD guests by specifying an explicit
297 bootloader, e.g.
<code>grub-bhyve(
1)
</code>. Arguments to the bootloader may be
298 specified as well. If the bootloader is
<code>grub-bhyve
</code> and arguments
299 are omitted, libvirt will try and infer boot ordering from user-supplied
300 <boot order='N'
> configuration in the domain. Failing that, it will boot
301 the first disk in the domain (either
<code>cdrom
</code>- or
302 <code>disk
</code>-type devices). If the disk type is
<code>disk
</code>, it will
303 attempt to boot from the first partition in the disk image.
</p>
307 <bootloader
>/usr/local/sbin/grub-bhyve
</bootloader
>
308 <bootloader_args
>...
</bootloader_args
>
312 <p>Caveat:
<code>bootloader_args
</code> does not support any quoting.
313 Filenames, etc, must not have spaces or they will be tokenized incorrectly.
</p>
315 <h3><a id=
"uefi">Using UEFI bootrom, VNC, and USB tablet
</a></h3>
317 <p><span class=
"since">Since
3.2.0</span>, in addition to
<a href=
"#grubbhyve">grub-bhyve
</a>,
318 non-FreeBSD guests could be also booted using an UEFI boot ROM, provided both guest OS and
319 installed
<code>bhyve(
1)
</code> version support UEFI. To use that,
<code>loader
</code>
320 should be specified in the
<code>os
</code> section:
</p>
323 <domain type='bhyve'
>
326 <type
>hvm
</type
>
327 <loader
readonly=
"yes" type=
"pflash">/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd
</loader
>
332 <p>This uses the UEFI firmware provided by
333 the
<a href=
"https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/bhyve-firmware/">sysutils/bhyve-firmware
</a>
336 <p>VNC and the tablet input device could be configured this way:
</p>
339 <domain type='bhyve'
>
342 <graphics type='vnc' port='
5904'
>
343 <listen type='address' address='
127.0.0.1'/
>
345 <controller type='usb' model='nec-xhci'/
>
346 <input type='tablet' bus='usb'/
>
352 <p>This way, VNC will be accessible on
<code>127.0.0.1:
5904</code>.
</p>
354 <p>Please note that the tablet device requires to have a USB controller
355 of the
<code>nec-xhci
</code> model. Currently, only a single controller of this
356 type and a single tablet are supported per domain.
</p>
358 <p><span class=
"since">Since
3.5.0</span>, it's possible to configure how the video device is exposed
359 to the guest using the
<code>vgaconf
</code> attribute:
</p>
362 <domain type='bhyve'
>
365 <graphics type='vnc' port='
5904'
>
366 <listen type='address' address='
127.0.0.1'/
>
369 <driver vgaconf='on'/
>
370 <model type='gop' heads='
1' primary='yes'/
>
378 <p>If not specified, bhyve's default mode for
<code>vgaconf
</code>
379 will be used. Please refer to the
380 <a href=
"https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bhyve&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+12-current">bhyve(
8)
</a>
381 manual page and the
<a href=
"https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve">bhyve wiki
</a> for more details on using
382 the
<code>vgaconf
</code> option.
</p>
384 <p><span class=
"since">Since
3.7.0</span>, it's possible to use
<code>autoport
</code>
385 to let libvirt allocate VNC port automatically (instead of explicitly specifying
386 it with the
<code>port
</code> attribute):
</p>
389 <graphics type='vnc' autoport='yes'
>
392 <h3><a id=
"clockconfig">Clock configuration
</a></h3>
394 <p>Originally bhyve supported only localtime for RTC. Support for UTC time was introduced in
395 <a href=
"http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/284894">r284894
</a> for
<i>10-STABLE
</i> and
396 in
<a href=
"http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/279225">r279225
</a> for
<i>-CURRENT
</i>.
397 It's possible to use this in libvirt
<span class=
"since">since
1.2.18</span>, just place the
398 following to domain XML:
</p>
401 <domain
type=
"bhyve">
403 <clock offset='utc'/
>
408 <p>Please note that if you run the older bhyve version that doesn't support UTC time, you'll
409 fail to start a domain. As UTC is used as a default when you do not specify clock settings,
410 you'll need to explicitly specify 'localtime' in this case:
</p>
413 <domain
type=
"bhyve">
415 <clock offset='localtime'/
>
420 <h3><a id=
"e1000">e1000 NIC
</a></h3>
422 <p>As of
<a href=
"https://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/302504">r302504
</a> bhyve
423 supports Intel e1000 network adapter emulation. It's supported in libvirt
424 <span class=
"since">since
3.1.0</span> and could be used as follows:
</p>
428 <interface type='bridge'
>
429 <source bridge='virbr0'/
>
430 <model type='
<b>e1000
</b>'/
>
435 <h3><a id=
"wired">Wiring guest memory
</a></h3>
437 <p><span class=
"since">Since
4.4.0</span>, it's possible to specify that guest memory should
438 be wired and cannot be swapped out as follows:
</p>
440 <domain
type=
"bhyve">
442 <memoryBacking
>
444 </memoryBacking
>
449 <h3><a id=
"cputopology">CPU topology
</a></h3>
451 <p><span class=
"since">Since
4.5.0</span>, it's possible to specify guest CPU topology, if bhyve
452 supports that. Support for specifying guest CPU topology was added to bhyve in
453 <a href=
"http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/base/332298">r332298
</a> for
<i>-CURRENT
</i>.
456 <domain
type=
"bhyve">
459 <topology sockets='
1' cores='
2' threads='
1'/
>
465 <h3><a id=
"bhyvecommand">Pass-through of arbitrary bhyve commands
</a></h3>
467 <p><span class=
"since">Since
5.1.0</span>, it's possible to pass additional command-line
468 arguments to the bhyve process when starting the domain using the
469 <code><bhyve:commandline
></code> element under
<code>domain
</code>.
470 To supply an argument, use the element
<code><bhyve:arg
></code> with
471 the attribute
<code>value
</code> set to additional argument to be added.
472 The arg element may be repeated multiple times. To use this XML addition, it is necessary
473 to issue an XML namespace request (the special
<code>xmlns:
<i>name
</i></code> attribute)
474 that pulls in
<code>http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/bhyve/
1.0</code>;
475 typically, the namespace is given the name of
<code>bhyve
</code>.
479 <domain
type=
"bhyve" xmlns:
bhyve=
"http://libvirt.org/schemas/domain/bhyve/1.0">
481 <bhyve:commandline
>
482 <bhyve:arg value='-somebhyvearg'/
>
483 </bhyve:commandline
>
487 <p>Note that these extensions are for testing and development purposes only.
488 They are
<b>unsupported
</b>, using them may result in inconsistent state,
489 and upgrading either bhyve or libvirtd maybe break behavior of a domain that
490 was relying on a specific commands pass-through.
</p>