README

Bhyvemgr

Bhyvemgr is a bhyve management GUI written in Freepascal/Lazarus on FreeBSD. It needs a bunch of tools mostly installed on base system and some installed from ports/packages. Currently it supports amd64 and aarch64. The main goal is to be a desktop user application to easily and quickly setup and run virtual machines on the FreeBSD host. Since v2.0.0 version, bhyvemgr was migrated to client/server architecture. For this reason a server component was developed. This new component is named bhyvemgrd.

Features

• virtual machines management
• create virtual machines from cloud/vm images
• cloud init and naugeinit initialization support
• devices management (support almost all bhyve pci devices with some exceptions)
• dnsmasq support
• vnc and xfreerdp client support
• zfs/ufs support
• raw/zfs volume support
• bridge/tap support
• bhyve_config configuration variables support
• mac_do/mdo support
• mac_do/setcred/exec_paths support (FreeBSD >= 1501501)
• uefi/uboot support only
• swtpm support
• ipv4/ipv6 support
• aarch64 and amd64 support
• i18n support
• PF/NAT support
• Storage ZFS snapshots support
• and more

Bhyvemgr dependencies

From base system

bhyve, bhyvectl, bhyveload, chown, chmod, fetch, file, ifconfig, install, kill, kldload, kldstat, makefs, mdo/mac_do, pciconf, pfctl, pgrep, rm, service, sysctl, truncate, xz, zfs and zpool

From ports/packages

bhyvemgrd (sysutils/bhyvemgrd), bhyve-firmware (sysutils/bhyve-firmware), qemu-tools (emulators/qemu@tools), swtpm (sysutils/swtpm), vncviewer (net/tigervnc-viewer) and xfreerdp3 (net/freerdp3)

Network configuration

bhyvemgr can use two kind of network settings: Quick network configuration or Optimal network configuration. Choose one of them accord to your own needs. I recommend second one because it permits a complete network management of virtual machines. Take a look at network configuration guide for details about how use/configure them.

Privilege tasks

The new version of bhyvemgr doesn't require root privileges via sudo or doas on FreeBSD. Privileged operations are handled by bhyvemgrd, mac_do/mdo or mac_do/setcred/exec_paths instead , helping to mitigate security risks. See the bhyvemgrd README for details about how to configure and run it.

Run bhyvemgr for the first time

bhyvemgr will create two configuration files: gui.conf and common.conf. The common.conf file is required for both bhyvemgr and bhyvemgrd. Take a look at migration guide if you are planning move from 1.15.0 to 2.0.0 or later. Don't forget add your user to bhyvemgrd group and do a re-login or restart your system before of run bhyvemgr on first time.

Demo

On FreeBSD aarch64

On FreeBSD amd64

Bhyvemgr Wiki contains guides about how use bhyvemgr in some use cases. Enjoy creating and testing your virtual machines on FreeBSD