Over the weekend I set up Sylve on FreeBSD 15-RELEASE, with latest rather than quarterly packages, just using `pkg install sylve` to get v0.2.3, with all the dependencies sorted for me.
Contrary to the docs, you don't then need to set up the config file or rc script as the package creates them. The config was perfectly fine for me to use straight away without any changes given I'm just poking at it on my mini homelab at the moment.
It was then relatively easy to use PAM authentication to log in as my FreeBSD user, grab the Debian 13 netinst ISO via the Downloader, and create a VM while following the docs.
However, the one area I really struggled with, what with me not being an experienced FreeBSD/Bhyve/network admin person, was getting the network stuff working for the VM to grab an IP address from my network DHCP server (mesh network).
Even with the docs and trying to search the Discord, at first I couldn't get Debian to happily pick up valid network config that had internet access. Eventually I worked out that I'd been a bit click happy and turned on Sylve's DHCP Server at init, and that was the reason why as I could skip getting packages for Debian for just a minimal install, and from there could see the host and nothing else.
Once I cleaned up Sylve's network stuff, turned off the DHCP Server, and bounced the box, I tried all kinds of things to get a Debian VM up and running with valid DHCP network address. Eventually I stumbled on the fact that a Sylve Switch's "Ports" config is actually a list of interfaces, i.e. ethernet cards, and not what I thought would be a way of restricting which ports could be used (22, 80, 443 etc). Once I actually bothered to click on the Ports field and saw the dropdown of network interfaces, I realised I just needed to pick my active ethernet port, and assign a static IP address to the "Switch" for it to create the bridge behind the scenes that my VMs could use get their own network address.
In hindsight, I guess given the naming, a "Switch" might then have ethernet "Ports" that you pick from.
So eventually I did get my Debian VM working, on like the twentieth attempt, and if I'd known how little config for the network stuff was actually needed, it would have been a lot quicker as it's a lot simpler than I imagined.
Other than my struggles with the network config, Sylve is looking very nice. The UI is slick and works well, and I'm looking forward to creating a few more VMs and then having a play with some FreeBSD Jails for a couple of projects too.
