xhyve-manager

https://asciinema.org/a/45565

Is this superfluous? Probably.

But do I care? No.

Why? I need to practice my C-fu, dagnabbit.

What’s working

• default virtual machine directory at /usr/local/Library/xhyve/machines.
• prints virtual machine info: xhyve-manager info CentOS.
• starts virtual machine: sudo xhyve-manager start FreeBSD
• edits virtual machine config: xhyve-manager edit Ubuntu

Planned Features

• Manage lifecycle of virtual machines (inspired by bhyvectl on FreeBSD)
• Build and package virtual machines
• Native, OS X GUI (inspired by virt-manager on Linux)

Challenges

Linux guests

• have to extract kernel and initrd from installation ISO before booting into the live environment
• have to extract kernel and initrd from new installation before rebooting

Storage

• need to create virtual disk with dd

Graphical Session

• need to connect with a VNC viewer

Roadmap

Commandline options

• [ ] list list virtual machines
• [ ] create <name> create a new virtual machine
• [X] edit<name> edit virtual machine configuration with external editor (for now).
• [ ] delete <name> delete virtual machine
• [ ] info <name> show info about the virtual machine
• [X] start <name> start virtual machine.

parse a $HOME/xhyve VMs/<name>.xhyvm directory. This is where we’ll store everything but the storage options.

Read config.ini that specify:

• [X] memory size
• [X] number of cpus
• [X] networking options
• [X] storage: internal or external, and mount latter depending on whether ISO is specified
• [X] type: linux or bsd so we know which initialization to load
• [X] acpi: enabled or not

Storage: specify with edit

• [X] CD: specify where this is on disk. Automatically extract the kernel and initrd (Put this in <name>.xhyvm) or just have user specify it.
• [X] HDD: specify where this is on disk; create if it doesn’t exist or just have user specify it.

Create a new virtual machine.

Collect these basic values:

machine_name eg. “Ubuntu 16.04”

machine_type eg. “linux”, “bsd”

internal_storage_configoptions path to the vdisk (e.g. /Users/aj/VDisks/vdisk0.img)

external_storage_configoptions path to the CD img (e.g. /Users/aj/xhyve VMs/Ubuntu.xhyvm/ubuntu.iso)

boot_options specify what it should be. for BSD this should be empty.

At last, start the VM and hope for the best. And also login. And start a VNC server, probably, if we want something graphical.

Location of boot images

Linux Live USBs

• Arch Linux /arch/boot/x86_64/{archiso.img,vmlinuz}
• CentOS /isolinux/{initrd.img,vmlinuz}
• Ubuntu /install/{initrd.gz,vmlinuz}
• Debian /install.amd/{initrd.gz,vmlinuz/