bhyve Help to spin up a Debian 13 VM with Bhyve

[freezr]

Hi guys,

I am trying to create a Debian virtual machine, I am following the handbook but I continue to fail. As per FreeBSD design, the process is intentionally counter intuitive and very convoluted, and this does not help...

1) Preps:

I installed grub2-bhyve and bhyve-firmware, downloaded "Debian 13" (renamed as deb13.iso), create device.map

cat device.map
(hd0) ./deb.img
(cd0) ./deb13.iso

2) Steps I followed to install the OS on the vm:

1) Create working directory
mkdir vm
cd vm

2) Load kernel module
kldstat | grep vmm
doas kldload vmm
kldstat | grep vmm
41    1 0xffffffff84e00000   340438 vmm.ko

3) Create bridge
doas ifconfig tap0 create
doas sysctl net.link.tap.up_on_open=1
net.link.tap.up_on_open: 0 -> 1
doas ifconfig bridge0 create
doas ifconfig bridge0 addm ue0 addm tap0
doas ifconfig bridge0 up

4) Create Disk (and device.map)
truncate -s 10G deb.img

5) Load linux kernel
doas grub-bhyve -m device.map -r cd0 -M 1024M linuxguest

6) Launch installer
doas bhyve -A -H -P -s 0:0,hostbridge -s 1:0,lpc -s 2:0,virtio-net,tap0 -s 3:0,virtio-blk,./deb.img -s 4:0,ahci-cd,./deb13.iso -l com1,stdio -c 4 -m 1024M linuxguest

7) Finish installation and destroy vm
doas bhyvectl --destroy --vm=linuxguest

3. Test and run the VM:

## Linux kernel not found

grub> ls
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos1) (cd0) (cd0,apple2) (cd0,apple1) (cd0,msdos2) (host)
grub> ls (hd0,msdos5)/
error: unknown filesystem.
grub> ls (hd0,msdos1)/
error: unknown filesystem.

The entries returned errors.

Thus I thought perhaps it must be boot with UEFI, and here I found some inconsistencies that confused even more.

# bhyve -AHP -s 0:0,hostbridge -s 1:0,lpc \
      -s 2:0,virtio-net,tap1 -s 3:0,virtio-blk,./disk.img \
    -s 4:0,ahci-cd,./install.iso -c 4 -m 1024M \
    -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
    guest

Is this command (and the others in handbook) to run the already created VM or to install a new one?

Why is it referring to tap1 once the only bridge has been created through the previous steps is tap0 ?

Why is it loading install.iso, are the instructions in that section to boot the VM or the create a new one?

It is not clear.

Thanks for you help...

 

[bakul]

I did a fresh install using the debian 13 iso (on 15.0) but I don't use vm-bhyve, just plain bhyve. I did a graphical install. I chose all the defaults (except added ssh server) and installed everything in one partition. Once it got installed, I removed the iso line (-s 4,...) and rebooted.

mkdir debian
cd debian
fetch https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-cd/debian-13.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso
truncate -s 32G debian.img
bhyve -c 1 \
        -s 0,hostbridge \
        -s 4,debian-13.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso \
        -s 5,nvme,debian.img \
        -s 10,virtio-net,tap2,mac=aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff \
        -s 20,xhci,tablet \
        -s 31,lpc \
        -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
        -s 11,fbuf,tcp=0.0.0.0:5900,w=1920,h=1080,wait \
        -l com1,/dev/nmdm0B \
        -m 4G -H \
        debian

 

[freezr]

bakul

Thank you very much, I'll try your method as soon as I can!

 

[Drizzt321]

bakul but how do I install not in graphical mode? This is my headless NAS, so everything done over SSH CLI.

 

[bakul]

No idea. I don't spend much time using Linux. Ask google AI.

 

[Drizzt321]

No idea. I don't spend much time using Linux. Ask google AI.

I'm avoiding Google these days, but doing my own searches and investigation is rather relevant and well pointed out. Wasn't sure if you knew though, so thought I'd ask.

 

[nxjoseph]

bakul but how do I install not in graphical mode? This is my headless NAS, so everything done over SSH CLI.

If you use sysutils/vm-bhyve for managing and using bhyve, it has a command-line argument to enter to the shell of the VM. I don't know how could one do that without that port.

# vm console <insert-vm-name-here>

 

[Drizzt321]

If you use sysutils/vm-bhyve for managing and using bhyve, it has a command-line argument to enter to the shell of the VM. I don't know how could one do that without that port.

# vm console <insert-vm-name-here>

That's not the problem, I know this, I've used it before. The problem is that Debian 13.x installer uses some newer ext4 features/flags that the current bhyve grub2 loader doesn't understand, so you end up at the grub console. Even trying with to use `ext3` on a separate `/boot` partition doesn't seem to work for me.

And using the `uefi` loader doesn't (initially) work either, because it goes to a graphical console, which would need VNC, which I and others don't want because we do all/most of our managing over SSH terminals.

Fortunately, I found https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...-unable-to-get-grub-working.98915/post-734907 which goes through how to start the installer with serial console, and then configure/update grub in the installed system with the serial console so can just use the standard tmux console.