Creating a FreeBSD virtual machine using bhyve-vm

I had a need for FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT.

I’m already using sysutils/vm-bhyve (Management system for bhyve virtual machines, relevant blog post).

These steps really are very short notes.

In this post:

FreeBSD 15.0 (the host system)
vm-bhyve-1.7.0_1
FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT

The very short notes

The VMs I had before I started:

[23:36 r730-01 dvl /data04/images/FreeBSD] % sudo vm list                                                                                      
NAME            DATASTORE  LOADER     CPU  MEMORY  VNC  AUTO     STATE
freebsd-test    default    bhyveload  1    256M    -    No       Stopped
hass            default    uefi       4    8GB     -    Yes [1]  Running (89852)
home-assistant  default    uefi       1    1GB     -    No       Stopped
myguest         default    bhyveload  1    768M    -    No       Stopped

[23:38 r730-01 dvl /data04/images/FreeBSD] % sudo vm img              
DATASTORE           FILENAME
default             FreeBSD-14.3-BETA3-amd64-dvd1.iso
default             FreeBSD-14.3-BETA3-amd64-memstick.img
default             FreeBSD-14.3-BETA4-amd64-zfs.raw
default             haos_ova-9.3.qcow2
default             haos_ova-9.3.qcow2.xz

I grabbed the ISO for the VM I wanted to install and decompressed it:

[23:20 r730-01 dvl /data04/images/FreeBSD] % sudo fetch \
https://download.freebsd.org/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/16.0/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-20260316-e6083790f217-284522-disc1.iso.xz
[23:21 r730-01 dvl /data04/images/FreeBSD] % sudo unxz FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-20260316-e6083790f217-284522-disc1.iso.xz

I imported that image into vm. The directory I’m in is not relevant.

[23:46 r730-01 dvl /usr/local/vm/hass] % sudo vm iso /data04/images/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-20260316-e6083790f217-284522-disc1.iso 
/usr/local/vm/.iso/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-        1313 MB  685 MBps    01s

[23:47 r730-01 dvl /usr/local/vm/hass] % ls -l /usr/local/vm/.iso
total 1112873
-rw-r--r--  1 root wheel  362465280 2020.10.23 05:57 FreeBSD-12.2-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso
-rw-r--r--  1 root wheel 1376800768 2026.03.16 14:28 FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-20260316-e6083790f217-284522-disc1.iso

I created the VM:

[23:56 r730-01 dvl /usr/local/vm/hass] % sudo vm create -c 4 -s 200G -m 32GB FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT

4 CPU
200G drive
32G RAM
name = FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT

Install that ISO there:

[23:56 r730-01 dvl /usr/local/vm/hass] % sudo vm install FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT-amd64-20260316-e6083790f217-284522-disc1.iso
Starting FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT
  * found guest in /usr/local/vm/FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT
  * booting...

Looking in command history, I see:

sudo vm install freebsd-test .img/FreeBSD-14.3-BETA3-amd64-dvd1.iso

That is referencing the file directly… I’m not sure what that means. Or it worked, but I see that done several times.

Jump into the console:

[23:56 r730-01 dvl /usr/local/vm/hass] % sudo vm console FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT                                              
Connected
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz (2300.12-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin="GenuineIntel"  Id=0x306f2  Family=0x6  Model=0x3f  Stepping=2
  Features=0x9f83fbff
  Features2=0xfede7a17
  AMD Features=0x2c100800
....

Then I installed and rebooted:

FreeBSD freebsd-16.0 16.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT #0 main-n284522-e6083790f217: Mon Mar 16 11:49:56 UTC 2026     root@releng3.nyi.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC amd64

After:

[0:32 r730-01 dvl ~] % sudo vm list
NAME                  DATASTORE  LOADER     CPU  MEMORY  VNC  AUTO     STATE
FreeBSD-16.0-CURRENT  default    bhyveload  4    32GB    -    No       Running (67485)
freebsd-test          default    bhyveload  1    256M    -    No       Stopped
hass                  default    uefi       4    8GB     -    Yes [1]  Running (89852)
home-assistant        default    uefi       1    1GB     -    No       Stopped
myguest               default    bhyveload  1    768M    -    No       Stopped

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.