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How to launch different guest OS

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Elena Mihailescu edited this page Jul 11, 2018 · 1 revision

Load modules.

First we need to load the following modules.

root@bhyve# kldload vmm nmdm if_tap if_bridge

Install uefi-edk2.

You can install the pre-built package or via ports sysutils/uefi-edk2-bhyve.

root@bhyve# pkg install uefi-edk2-bhyve

Prepare the network interfaces.

Create a tap(4) interface.

root@bhyve# ifconfig tap0 create

Create a bridge(4) interface.

root@bhyve# ifconfig bridge0 create

The igb0 interface is my physical NIC where I want to attach the bridge and tap interface, also via igb0 my guest VM will be able to obtain an IPv4 via dhcp

root@bhyve# ifconfig bridge0 addm igb0 addm tap0

By default, tap(4) interfaces doesn't comes UP, or we need to ifconfig tap0 up or set this sysctl(8).

root@bhyve# sysctl net.link.tap.up_on_open=1

Create a guest raw disk.

root@bhyve# truncate -s 20G /<path>/disk.raw

Download the latest ISO version of these guest flavors.

Usually these are the guests I use in my testbed.

  • FreeBSD HEAD
  • Ubuntu
  • Fedora
  • Windows 2016
  • NetBSD or OpenBSD

Note: NetBSD or OpenBSD is good to test legacy MSI interrupt.

Install a guest OS.

For FreeBSD on AMD64 is suggested to use -A to generate ACPI tables.

FreeBSD.

root@bhyve# bhyve -A -H -P -c 4 -m 8096M -s 0:0,hostbridge -s 31,lpc -l com1,/dev/nmdm1A -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd -s 29,fbuf,tcp=10.20.21.2:6032,w=800,h=600 -s 30,xhci,tablet -s 4,virtio-blk,/<path>/disk.raw -s 5,virtio-net,tap0,mac=00:a0:98:2c:d5:9f -s 6,ahci-cd,/z/isos/FreeBSD-12.0-CURRENT-amd64-20180329-r331740-disc1.iso FreeBSD

Fedora.

root@bhyve# bhyve -H -P -c 4 -m 8096M -s 0:0,hostbridge -s 31,lpc -l com1,/dev/nmdm1A -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd -s 29,fbuf,tcp=10.20.21.2:6032,w=800,h=600 -s 30,xhci,tablet -s 4,virtio-blk,/<path>/disk.raw -s 5,virtio-net,tap0,mac=00:a0:98:2c:d5:9f -s 6,ahci-cd,/z/isos/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-27-1.6.iso Fedora

NOTE: After install and shutdown the VM, you should remove the slot 6 ahci-cd and you will be able to boot from raw disk.

How to organize the test environment.

This is an example how I organize my test environment. For each VM you must have a different raw disk as well as an unique tap(4) interface in case you want to run multiple VM at same time. Usually I organize my test environment with different sub-directories and scripts to launch each flavor of guest.

Directory tree.

root@bhyve#: tree /z/vms/
/z/vms/
|-- freebsd
|   |-- destroy.sh
|   |-- disk.img
|   |-- restore.sh
|   `-- vm.sh
|-- freenas
|   |-- destroy.sh
|   |-- disk.img
|   |-- restore.sh
|   `-- vm.sh
|-- linux
|   |-- destroy.sh
|   |-- disk.img
|   |-- restore.sh
|   `-- vm.sh
`-- windows
    |-- destroy.sh
    |-- disk.img
    |-- restore.sh
    `-- vm.sh

CPU Architecture

I always test on Intel and AMD64 CPU types. I have these two CPU's in my testbed.

  • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2609 v2 @ 2.50GHz
  • AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-Core Processor
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