How to use Bhyve? What is it?

As technology continues to advance, virtualization is becoming increasingly popular in the world of computing. One such virtualization tool that is gaining popularity in the industry is Bhyve. In this article, we'll discuss what Bhyve is and how to use it.

What is Bhyve?

Bhyve is a virtualization tool that is available on FreeBSD, an open-source Unix-like operating system. Bhyve is short for BSD hypervisor, and it enables users to create and manage virtual machines on a FreeBSD operating system. Bhyve is a Type 2 hypervisor, which means it installs on top of an existing OS.

How to use Bhyve?

Before you begin using Bhyve, you need to ensure that your system meets the necessary requirements. Your system must have an Intel or AMD processor that supports virtualization, and your operating system must be either FreeBSD or another Unix-like operating system that supports KVM.

Once you've confirmed your system meets the requirements, you can begin to install Bhyve. The installation process is straightforward and can be done using the pkg utility available on FreeBSD.

After installing Bhyve, you can start creating virtual machines. You can use the command-line interface (CLI) or a graphical user interface (GUI) such as the bhyve-rc script to create and manage virtual machines.

For example, to create a virtual machine with Bhyve, you can use the following command:

sudo bhyve -c 2 -m 2048M -w -H -P -g 0 \
-s 0,hostbridge \ 
-s 4,virtio-blk,/path/to/disk.img \
-s 5,virtio-net,tap0 \
-s 29,fbuf,tcp=0.0.0.0:5900,w=1024,h=768,wait \
-l com1,stdio \
myvm

This command creates a virtual machine called "myvm" with 2 CPU cores and 2048 MB of RAM. The virtual machine also includes a host bridge, a virtio-blk storage device, and a virtio-net network device.

Conclusion

Bhyve is a powerful virtualization tool for FreeBSD that allows users to create and manage virtual machines on their system. Although it may seem daunting to install and use, Bhyve is relatively straightforward to set up and use. Whether you're a developer or a system administrator, Bhyve is worth considering for your virtualization needs.