Bhyve passthru usb

Bhyve passthru usb in FreeBSD

Transferring usb devices from the host system to a virtual one

Bhyve supports the transfer of usb devices from the host system to a virtual one so we can bring an external usb device from our FreeBSD host system into our virtual Windows environment with the Bhyve hypervisor.

Let's install Bhyve and configure it first, then proceed to install Windows, open a terminal and type the command:

pkg install vm-bhyve bhyve-firmware

Then using any text editor you like like ee or mc add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf

vm_enable="YES"

vm_dir="/vm"

Then run and copy all the templates to the virtual machines directory:

vm init

cp /usr/local/share/examples/vm-bhyve/* /vm/.templates

Now create a switch which will bring the Internet to the virtual machines:

vm switch create public

vm switch add public re0

Next we create a configuration file using a Windows template and a disk image named Win or something else:

vm create -t windows -s 50G Win

Install Windows using any vnc client to connect to the system. The default address is 0.0.0.0:5900 or you can do it with

vm list

vm install Win/Windows-10.iso

After installing the system we need to list our USB devices:

pciconf -lv

Or search for our USB controllers like this:

pciconf -lv | grep USB

pciconf -lv | grep xhci

For example this would be xhci0@pci0:2:0:0:

To transfer the USB controller to the Bhyve run this command:

devctl set driver -f pci0:2:0:0 ppt

Then see if the device is ready

vm passthru

If yes we set the configuration file of the virtual machine. Go to the directory with the virtual machine and edit it by adding the line:

cd vm/Win/Win.conf

ee Win.conf

#USB

passthru0="2/0/0"

That is it, start vm start Win and plug in any external USB device.

BSD is so easy and fun!