Bhyve
bhyve is an open-source hypervisor that allows users to run multiple operating systems as virtual machines on FreeBSD. It supports features like UEFI firmware, PCI passthrough, SMP, virtio drivers and more.
hypervisor
virtualization
virtual-machines
freebsd
bhyve: Open-Source Hypervisor for Running Multiple OSes on FreeBSD
Discover bhyve, an open-source hypervisor allowing you to run multiple operating systems as virtual machines on FreeBSD, with features like UEFI firmware and PCI passthrough.
What is Bhyve?
Bhyve is an open-source Type 2 hypervisor that runs on FreeBSD. It allows users to run multiple guest operating systems (called virtual machines or VMs) simultaneously on a single FreeBSD host system. Bhyve supports hardware virtualization features like Intel VT-x and AMD-V to improve the performance of guest VMs.
Some key features of bhyve include:
- UEFI firmware support - VMs can have UEFI-based firmware for booting modern operating systems like Windows 8/10/11.
- PCI passthrough - Allows VM direct and native access to host PCI devices for very high device performance.
- SMP - VMs can use multiple virtual CPUs.
- Virtio drivers - High performance paravirtualized drivers.
- Disk images - VMs run off disk images rather than partitions.
- Snapshots - Save and restore VM state.
- Migration - Live migrate running VMs between hosts.
bhyve is bundled with FreeBSD so easy to get running. It has a simple command-line interface but third party tools like vm-bhyve provide a graphical management interface. The main limitation is it currently only runs on FreeBSD hosts.
Bhyve Features
Features
- Supports virtualization of x86-64 guest operating systems
- Utilizes hardware virtualization capabilities on AMD and Intel CPUs
- Supports UEFI firmware for guest VMs
- PCI passthrough allows direct access to physical hardware from guest VMs
- SMP allows configuring multiple virtual CPUs for guest VMs
- virtio drivers provide high performance network and disk I/O
- Live migration moves running VMs between hosts
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Free and open source software
Good performance and low overhead
Supports modern virtualization features
Integrated into FreeBSD for ease of use and management
Cons
Only runs on FreeBSD hosts
Limited management tools compared to other hypervisors
Less extensive documentation and community support
Fewer guest OS support than alternatives like KVM
Official Links
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