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MirageOS Unikernels Now Support KVM and FreeBSD bhyve

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MirageOS is a library operating system that builds unikernels for the purpose of high-performance network applications for cloud and mobile platforms. Recently, the developers have announced support for KVM hypervisor and FreeBSD’s bhyve. Read the full article for more information on what this capability brings.

Unikernels-620x300Expanding Unikernels Support

Previously, unikernels created using MirageOS were far from being able to boot anywhere. They supported only environments hosted using the Xen hypervisor.

With the release of MirageOS 3.0, however, the platform now supports the KVM and FreeBSD bhyve hypervisors, too. That’s significant because it brings the unikernels a step closer to realizing their full potential—which is to be entirely environment-agnostic and capable of booting anywhere.

Original article: http://containerjournal.com/2017/02/27/mirageos-unikernels-now-support-kvm-freebsd-bhyve/

Hosting Journalist: http://www.hostingjournalist.com/iaas-hosting/xen-projects-mirageos-expands-its-ecosystem-in-latest-release/

How-To: FreeBSD running on xhyve

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xhyve_logoThis tutorial by user shows us how to get a FreeBSD virtual machine setup on xhyve. xhyve, a port of bhyve, is a virtualization platform for Mac OS X operating system. See the link below for the full instructions.

TL;DR

  • Create 5GB FreeBSD image.
  • Install FreeBSD on xhyve.
  • Mount host directory.

Requisites

$ brew install xhyve --HEAD

Create Guest Image …

Full tutorial: https://gist.github.com/tanb/f8fefa22332edc7a641d

How-To: Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard on FreeBSD via bhyve hypervisor

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bhyvew2012Thanks to this tutorial by user James Lodge, we can get Windows Server 2012 R2 running on a FreeBSD bhyve hypervisor. Follow the link below for the full instructions.

Before embarking its worth reviewing the requirements as running Windows on Bhyve does require a bit of work and not for the faint hearted. It also requires some pretty specific hardware requirements/features as Bhyve has been built form the ground up with modern hardware accelerated virtualisation features at the forefront leave all the legacy cruff in its wake.

Requirements:

  • FreeBSD Current 11 r288524 (minimum)
  • Kernel Modules
    • vmm.ko  (Bhyve)
    • nmdm.ko  (Null Modem)
    • if_tap.ko (tap network interface)
    • if_bridge.ko (bridge network interface)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Installation ISO
  • An AutoUnattend.xml file
    • To automate the installation as there is no graphical console.
  • virtio Windows drivers
  • CPU Supporting EPT with Unrestricted Guest Feature
    • EPT was introduce by Intel in 2008 as part of the Nehalem family of processors but lacked the unrestricted guest feature until the release of Westmere in 2010. Without unrestricted guest you will not be able to boot via the UEFI ROM
  • 7zip and cdrtools packages installed
  • Some spare time and patients

Full tutorial: https://jameslodge.com/freebsd-bhyve-hypervisor-running-windows-server-2012-r2-standard/

Running Windows under FreeBSD’s bhyve

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bhyve Thanks to the folks at pr1ntf.xyz, we can get Windows virtualized with bhyve on FreeBSD. Follow the link below for full instructions.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Windows Operating System Family.

As I wrote about in the past, Windows support was coming to the FreeBSD hypervisor bhyve. Support officially came with FreeBSD 11.0-CURRENT r288524 when it was announced via the FreeBSD Virtualization mailing list. Shortly after, Windows Diplomat Michael Dexter wrote a great how-to on the FreeBSD Wiki to get Windows up and going under bhyve.

Full tutorial: http://pr1ntf.xyz/windowsunderbhyve.html

Using bhyve on FreeBSD

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This tutorial by tetragir.com will show you how to setup and use bhyve on FreeBSD. bhyve is a BSD hypervisor and virtual machine manager which relies on features such as Extended Page Tables and VirtIO network/storage drivers.

Original: https://tetragir.com/freebsd/bhyve/using-bhyve-on-freebsd.html

freebsd_bhyveI wanted to write an article about bhyve for a long time now, and fortunately I recently had the time to do just that. Bhyve has the potential to became a very sophisticated, and advanced hypervisor.

1. Introduction

I’m not sure since when, but bhyve now supports libvirt. That’s great news, given that libvirt is a universal tool which helps in managing VMs. There are quite a few hypervisors compatible with libvirt, for example KVM, Xen, Linux containers (LXC) and a bunch of others. On the other hand, there are only a few graphical fronteds compatible with it, for example Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager), which is a general purpose VM management tool. This can be installed to a computer and the hypervisors can be managed from there. Virt-manager is generally good for a few hypervisors, with 10-20 VMs, but managing a cloud infrastructure is quite a challenge with it. There a few tools compatible with libvirt, which are targeted at clouds or greater deployment.

In this article, I will cover the Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager). This tool allows for the basic management of VMs, such as installing, starting, deleting etc. The goal of this document is to introduce the installation and configuration of bhyve to a FreeBSD host, libvirt, and the virt-manager to a remote computer, then to explain how you can connect from the virt-manager to the remote host. This setup allows the management of VMs remotely. This article is customized for CentOS guest installation as a guest, however other Linux guests could be installed and used in a similar way.

As its current state, libvirt is not fully compatible with bhyve and therefore interacting with VMs with libvirt is not possbile. However, this article provides instructions for installing and managing VMs with bhyve itself.

2. Additional informations for this article

[Read more…]

BAFUG July 2014

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Bay Area FreeBSD User Group had two presentations during their July 2014 meeting. In the following videos, Craig Rodrigues discusses libvirt and bhyve integration, while Adrian Chadd talks about upcoming RSS enhancements to the FreeBSD network stack. Press play below to tune in:

Bhyve: virtualization on FreeBSD

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bhyveThis short tutorial will show you how to get Bhyve, or BSD Hypervisor, configured and running on FreeBSD 10.

Bhyve(BSD Hypervisor) is an Open hypervisor developed on FreeBSD with features like EPT and Virtio. It is built in to FreeBSD from Version 10.0

Minimum Hardware required for bhyve are

  1. VT enabled Processor -Intel only (AMD is not supported as of 9/6/2014)
  2. 4GB RAM (Recommended)
  3. 7200 RPM HDD or higher

Check out the full blog post with instructions here: http://fosskb.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/bhyve-virtualiztion-on-freebsd/