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VMM(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual VMM(4) NAME vmm.ko -- bhyve virtual machine monitor SYNOPSIS To load the driver as a module at boot, add this line to loader.conf(5): vmm_load="YES" The module can also be loaded manually with kldload(8): kldload vmm DESCRIPTION vmm.ko provides the kernel portion of the bhyve(4) hypervisor. The following platforms are supported: • amd64: An Intel CPU with VT-x/EPT or AMD CPU with SVM support is required. • arm64: The boot CPU must start in EL2 and the system must have a GICv3 interrupt controller. VHE support will be used if available. • riscv: The CPUs must implement the H (hypervisor) RISC-V ISA exten- sion. PCI device passthrough to a virtual machine requires hardware with VT-d support and is available only on amd64. PCI PASSTHROUGH On amd64 where the hardware supports VT-d, PCI devices can be reserved for use by the hypervisor. Entries consisting of the PCI bus/slot/function are added to the pptdevs loader.conf(5) variable. Additional entries are separated by spaces. Host PCI devices that match an entry will be assigned to the hypervisor and will not be probed by FreeBSD device drivers. See the "EXAMPLES" section below for sample usage. Note that vmm must be given first the right of refusal to all pci(4) devices it may need to claim. As a result, the vmm kernel module al- most certainly needs to be loaded from loader.conf(5) rather than by adding it to kld_list in rc.conf(5). A large number of PCI device entries may require a string longer than the 128-character limit of loader.conf(5) variables. The pptdevs2 and pptdevs3 variables can be used for additional entries. LOADER TUNABLES Tunables can be set at the loader(8) prompt before booting the kernel or stored in loader.conf(5). hw.vmm.maxcpu Maximum number of virtual CPUs. The default is the number of physical CPUs in the system. EXAMPLES Reserve three PCI devices for use by the hypervisor: bus 10 slot 0 function 0, bus 6 slot 5 function 0, and bus 6 slot 5 function 1. pptdevs="10/0/0 6/5/0 6/5/1" It is possible to detach ppt from a PCI device without rebooting the host machine and then attach a host driver, using the devctl(8) util- ity. Suppose ppt is currently attached to pci0:0:1:0 and we want the host's xhci(4) driver to be attached instead: # devctl set driver -f pci0:0:1:0 xhci The same can be applied to attach ppt back: # devctl set driver -f pci0:0:1:0 ppt SEE ALSO bhyve(4), loader.conf(5), bhyve(8), bhyveload(8), devctl(8), kldload(8) HISTORY vmm.ko first appeared in FreeBSD 10.0. arm64 and riscv support first appeared in FreeBSD 15.0. AUTHORS Neel Natu <neel@freebsd.org> Peter Grehan <grehan@freebsd.org> FreeBSD 15.0 December 30, 2024 VMM(4)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | PCI PASSTHROUGH | LOADER TUNABLES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS
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