bhyve (pronounced "bee hive", formerly written as BHyVe for "BSD hypervisor") is a type-2 (hosted)

hypervisor A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

initially written for

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

. It can also be used on a number of

illumos Illumos (stylized as "illumos") is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It has been developed since 2010 and is based on OpenSolaris, after the discontinuation of that product by Oracle. It comprises a kernel, device driver ...

based distributions including

SmartOS SmartOS is a free and open-source SVR4 hypervisor based on the UNIX operating system that combines OpenSolaris technology with bhyve and KVM virtualization. Its core kernel contributes to the illumos project. It features several technologies: ...

, OpenIndiana, and OmniOS. A port of bhyve to

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

called xhyve is also available.

Features

bhyve supports the virtualization of several guest operating systems, including FreeBSD 9+,

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was fork (software development), forked. It continues to ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

DragonFly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threat ...

and

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

(

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

and later,

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...

and later). bhyve also supports

UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

installations and VirtIO emulated interfaces. Windows

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

s require VirtIO drivers for a stable operation. Current development efforts aim at widening support for other

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s for the

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

architecture. Support for

peripheral A peripheral device, or simply peripheral, is an auxiliary hardware device that a computer uses to transfer information externally. A peripheral is a hardware component that is accessible to and controlled by a computer but is not a core compo ...

s relies on basic and VirtIO drivers and supports: eXtensible Host Controller Interface ( xHCI)

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

controllers, NVM Express (NVMe) controllers, High Definition Audio Controllers, raw

framebuffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Mode ...

device attached to VNC server (Video Output), and

AHCI The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel that specifies the Hardware register, register-level interface of Serial ATA (SATA) host controllers in a non-implementation-specific manner in its Intel chip ...

/PCI Passthrough. Since the support for peripherals is incomplete, hardware-accelerated graphics is only available using PCI passthrough. But, Intel GVT (and other vGPUs with driver support) should allow sharing the device with the host. bhyve performs about the same as its competitors with lack of memory ballooning and accelerated graphics interface, but bhyve has a more modern codebase and uses fewer

resources ''Resource'' refers to all the materials available in our environment which are Technology, technologically accessible, Economics, economically feasible and Culture, culturally Sustainability, sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and want ...

. In the case of

the

resource management In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include the financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or ...

is more efficient.

is also known for its exemplary I/O speeds; running bhyve from

has a lot of advantages for time-critical

virtual appliance A virtual appliance is a pre-configured virtual machine image, ready to run on a hypervisor; virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances. Installation of a software appliance on a virtual machine and packaging that ...

s by reducing I/O time, especially on disk and network related loads.

Applications

Docker on

uses a bhyve derivative called ''HyperKit''. It is derived from ''xhyve'', a port of bhyve to macOS's Hypervisor framework. iohyve on

is a command-line utility to create, store, manage, and launch bhyve guests using built in FreeBSD features. vm-bhyve on

is a shell-based, bhyve manager with minimal dependencies. BVCP on

is a lightweight, native, full featured web interface for managing virtual machines. FreeNAS, based on

, uses bhyve alongside its file sharing services to provide hosting for VMs.

Other distributions

ClonOS, a

-based distribution for virtual hosting platform and appliance, primarily uses bhyve and has a web-based management interface. MyBee, a

-based distribution for managing cloud VMs (bhyve) through a simplified API.

, an

Illumos Illumos (stylized as "illumos") is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It has been developed since 2010 and is based on OpenSolaris, after the discontinuation of that product by Oracle. It comprises a kernel, device driver ...

-based distribution for managing cloud VMs (bhyve, Solaris zones) through a simplified API. MidnightBSD, a desktop operating system, includes bhyve.

References

External links

*
bhyve
on FreeBSD wiki FreeBSD Free virtualization software Software using the BSD license Free software programmed in C {{free-software-stub

Features

Applications

Other distributions

References

Further reading

External links