Public VMs on OpenBSD

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is a note on how to make a VM running on OpenBSD connect to the host’s network.

Firstly, we need to create a bridge with our external network interface.

# echo "em0" > /etc/hostname.bridge0
# /etc/netstart bridge0

In /etc/vm.conf we need to add a switch on bridge0:

switch "sw" {
    interface bridge0
}

Then, our VM needs to be attached to that switch:

vm "openbsd" {
    memory 8G
    enable
    disk /data/vm/openbsd/main.qcow2
    interface tap {
	switch "sw"
    }
}

My network setup also requires to specify the MAC address of the network interface:

Quick start: virtual machines on OpenBSD

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Since OpenBSD 5.9 it is possible to run virtual machines using a native virtualisation solution.

This is a short note/guide on how to set up a VM on OpenBSD in the simplest way that lets you have a quick play with vmm/vmd.

First of all, we need to enable vmd on our host and get it running:
```
# rcctl enable vmd
# rcctl start vmd
```
You may also want to make sure you firewall can initially let everything through: