bhyve How well work bhyve for arm64 at this time ? and it is able to passthru the GPU ?

[ZioMario]

Hello.

Someone these days is playing with bhyve for arm64 ? I didn't have the time to try it,but I'm interested to understand how well it works at this time and above all,if it is able to passthru the GPU used by the host,let's say FreeBSD installed on some capable Arm64 board,to a guest,let's say Linux as guest OS. I doubt that it can be done,but I really want to know the answer.

 

[Phishfry]

I am going shitpost back at ya.

Can you cite a single video card working on Arm64? Maybe Ampere or ThunderX2 but those use UEFI EDK2.

I really don't see passthru of video card working on most Arm64 platforms.

The only board I have with 8GB RAM is OdroidM1 and I have not tested bhyve on it.
I would not even consider it with less than 8GB. Just my quirk.

 

[Phishfry]

Well you didn't mention it but I am supposing you see Rock5-ITX and wonder about video card.

I would say these early PCIe implementations are rough around the edges.

Storage and Networking cards are going to be your best bet.

Eventually the DesignWare PCIe driver on FreeBSD will mature. Right now it handles one device well.
Two PCIe devices and it does not work on Rock3A so I can't imagine Rock5 being better. Even with UEFI EDK2 booting.

I would like to hear differently.

 

[ZioMario]

on the ML I read that any Arm64 that supports GICv3 work well with bhyve.

 

[Phishfry]

Sounds feasible running bhyve on arm64 but I am asking why. Besides process seperation it seems pointless.
Take a struggling platform and demand server tasks.
Disk Throughput is already crippled. Now add virt.

I don't like climbing mountains just to climb mountains.

 

[ZioMario]

Hello.

I've found this old document,dated 2016,where the Linaro team says to have upstreamed the patches to passthru a gpu on arm64 for the boards that supporters the gicV3 specifications :

https://old.linaro.org/blog/kvm-pciemsi-passthrough-armarm64/

Those patches work if we use qemu and kvm. They don't explain which arm64 boards were supported at the time.

I don't understand what is the context in which those patches work. And what's the situation today ?

I presume that the board should have the PCIe bus ? Maybe boards like the Radxa Orion O6,a 200 dollars board,that's an acceptable cost,compared to the Ampere boards.

If I use that board with qemu and kvm,could I make the passthru of the GPU ?

If it has been done for qemu-kvm I don't understand why the developers can't develop the necessary patches to allow the passthru of the gpu even for bhyve.

 

[Phishfry]

I don't understand why the developers can't develop the necessary patches to allow the passthru of the gpu even for bhyve.

Because companies like NVidia require KVM tag for driver that we must patch bhyve for.
Why they do that?

 

[ZioMario]

The GPU of the Radxa Orion O6 has nothing to do with Nvidia :

• GPU
• 
  Arm® Immortals™ G720 MC10
  
  - Hardware Ray‑Tracing enabled
  
  – Vulkan® 1.3
  
  - OpenGL® ES 3.2
  
  - OpenCL® 3.0

 

[ZioMario]

Even my RockPro Rk399 has the PCi-E bus...a lot of boards today has it ? THis board also supports gicv3,so maybe I can pass the GPU installed on the board to a Linux vm using qemu + kvm. Some patches are needed for sure anyway. And Im not sure that they have been developed.