Manual Pages  — BHYVE

If not using a boot ROM, the guest operating system must be loaded with bhyveload(8) or a similar boot loader before running bhyve, otherwise, it is enough to run bhyve with a boot ROM of choice.

bhyve runs until the guest operating system reboots or an unhandled hypervisor exit is detected.

The host device must have been reserved at boot-time using the pptdevs loader variable as described in vmm(4).

Virtio console device backends:

• port1=/path/to/port1.sock[,portNamp;=/path/to/port2.sock  ...]

A maximum of 16 ports per device can be created. Every port is named and corresponds to a Unix domain socket created by bhyve. bhyve accepts at most one connection per port at a time.

Limitations:

• Due to lack of destructors in bhyve, sockets on the filesystem must be cleaned up manually after bhyve exits.
• There is no way to use the "console port" feature, nor the console port resize at present.
• Emergency write is advertised, but no-op at present.

Framebuffer devices backends:

• [rfb= ip-and-port][,w= width][,h= height][,vga= vgaconf][,wait][,password= password]

Configuration options are defined as follows:

rfb=ip-and-port (or tcp=ip-and-port)
	An IP address and a port VNC should listen on. There are two formats: [IPv4amp;:]port amp;[ IPv6%zoneamp;]amp;: port The default is to listen on localhost IPv4 address and default VNC port 5900. An IPv6 address must be enclosed in square brackets and may contain an optional zone identifier.
w=width and h=height
	A display resolution, width and height, respectively. If not specified, a default resolution of 1024x768 pixels will be used. Minimal supported resolution is 640x480 pixels, and maximum is 1920x1200 pixels.
vga=vgaconf
	Possible values for this option are io (default), on , and off. PCI graphics cards have a dual personality in that they are standard PCI devices with BAR addressing, but may also implicitly decode legacy VGA I/O space ( 0x3c0-3df) and memory space (64KB at 0xA0000). The default io option should be used for guests that attempt to issue BIOS calls which result in I/O port queries, and fail to boot if I/O decode is disabled. The on option should be used along with the CSM BIOS capability in UEFI to boot traditional BIOS guests that require the legacy VGA I/O and memory regions to be available. The off option should be used for the UEFI guests that assume that VGA adapter is present if they detect the I/O ports. An example of such a guest is OpenBSD in UEFI mode. Please refer to the bhyve FreeBSD wiki page (Lk https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve) for configuration notes of particular guests.
wait	Instruct bhyve to only boot upon the initiation of a VNC connection, simplifying the installation of operating systems that require immediate keyboard input. This can be removed for post-installation use.
password=password
	This type of authentication is known to be cryptographically weak and is not intended for use on untrusted networks. Many implementations will want to use stronger security, such as running the session over an encrypted channel provided by IPsec or SSH.

xHCI USB device backends:

tablet
	A USB tablet device which provides precise cursor synchronization when using VNC.

NVMe device backends:

• devpath[,maxq= #][,qsz= #][,ioslots= #][,sectsz= #][,ser= #][,eui64= #][,dsm= opt]

Configuration options are defined as follows:

devpath
	Accepted device paths are: /dev/blockdev or /path/to/image or ram=size_in_MiB.
maxq	Max number of queues.
qsz	Max elements in each queue.
ioslots
	Max number of concurrent I/O requests.
sectsz
	Sector size (defaults to blockif sector size).
ser	Serial number with maximum 20 characters.
eui64	IEEE Extended Unique Identifier (8 byte value).
dsm	DataSet Management support. Supported values are: auto, enable, and disable.

AHCI device backends:

• [[hdamp;:|cdamp;: ]path][,nmrr= nmrr][,ser= #][,rev= #][,model= #]

Configuration options are defined as follows:

nmrr	Nominal Media Rotation Rate, known as RPM. Value 1 will indicate device as Solid State Disk. Default value is 0, not report.
ser	Serial Number with maximum 20 characters.
rev	Revision Number with maximum 8 characters.
model	Model Number with maximum 40 characters.

HD Audio device backends:

• [play= playback][,rec= recording]

Configuration options are defined as follows:

play	Playback device, typically /dev/dsp0.
rec	Recording device, typically /dev/dsp0.

-U uuid
	Set the universally unique identifier (UUID) in the guest's System Management BIOS System Information structure. By default a UUID is generated from the host's hostname and vmname.
-u
	RTC keeps UTC time.
-W
	Force virtio PCI device emulations to use MSI interrupts instead of MSI-X interrupts.
-w
	Ignore accesses to unimplemented Model Specific Registers (MSRs). This is intended for debug purposes.
-x
	The guest's local APIC is configured in x2APIC mode.
-Y
	Disable MPtable generation.
vmname
	Alphanumeric name of the guest. This should be the same as that created by bhyveload(8).

To run a virtual machine with 1GB of memory, two virtual CPUs, a virtio block device backed by the /my/image filesystem image, and a serial port for the console:

bhyve -c 2 -s 0,hostbridge -s 1,lpc -s 2,virtio-blk,/my/image \
  -l com1,stdio -A -H -P -m 1G vm1

Run a 24GB single-CPU virtual machine with three network ports, one of which has a MAC address specified:

bhyve -s 0,hostbridge -s 1,lpc -s 2:0,virtio-net,tap0 \
  -s 2:1,virtio-net,tap1 \
  -s 2:2,virtio-net,tap2,mac=00:be:fa:76:45:00 \
  -s 3,virtio-blk,/my/image -l com1,stdio \
  -A -H -P -m 24G bigvm

Run an 8GB quad-CPU virtual machine with 8 AHCI SATA disks, an AHCI ATAPI CD-ROM, a single virtio network port, an AMD hostbridge, and the console port connected to an nmdm(4) null-modem device.

bhyve -c 4 \
  -s 0,amd_hostbridge -s 1,lpc \
  -s 1:0,ahci,hd:/images/disk.1,hd:/images/disk.2,\
hd:/images/disk.3,hd:/images/disk.4,\
hd:/images/disk.5,hd:/images/disk.6,\
hd:/images/disk.7,hd:/images/disk.8,\
cd:/images/install.iso \
  -s 3,virtio-net,tap0 \
  -l com1,/dev/nmdm0A \
  -A -H -P -m 8G

Run a UEFI virtual machine with a display resolution of 800 by 600 pixels that can be accessed via VNC at: 0.0.0.0:5900.

bhyve -c 2 -m 4G -w -H \
  -s 0,hostbridge \
  -s 3,ahci-cd,/path/to/uefi-OS-install.iso \
  -s 4,ahci-hd,disk.img \
  -s 5,virtio-net,tap0 \
  -s 29,fbuf,tcp=0.0.0.0:5900,w=800,h=600,wait \
  -s 30,xhci,tablet \
  -s 31,lpc -l com1,stdio \
  -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
   uefivm

Run a UEFI virtual machine with a VNC display that is bound to all IPv6 addresses on port 5900.

bhyve -c 2 -m 4G -w -H \
  -s 0,hostbridge \
  -s 4,ahci-hd,disk.img \
  -s 5,virtio-net,tap0 \
  -s 29,fbuf,tcp=[::]:5900,w=800,h=600 \
  -s 30,xhci,tablet \
  -s 31,lpc -l com1,stdio \
  -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
   uefivm

Intel, 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 3,