Virtualization on OpenBSD with VMM - configuration and walkthrough

VMM, virtual machine monitor, is the OpenBSD hypervisor capable of utilizing hardware virtualization. While it
has decent performance, it is not yet feature complete. It lacks graphics and hardware passthrough.
In this video, I cover the essential grounds of VMM and vmctl to get a virtual machine up and running by installing #debian and running it as a guest machine on #openbsd host.
Sources:
- faq16 - Virtualization: www.openbsd.or...
- vmctl man page: man.openbsd.or...
- vmm man page: man.openbsd.or...
- serial console on Debian: www.debian.org...

[@jakubvokoun81]

That was quick! Thanks for the video. I hope, we'll see the more advanced one soon!

[@robertturner7090]

Thank you for the content and great timing. 6 months ago I got annoyed with pfSense having to compile NIC drivers in a VM each time I wanted to update. I swapped to openbsd to avoid that hassle and to better learn the fundamentals without all the sexy GUI bits. Your videos motivated me to throw openbsd on a spare laptop last night to consider using as a daily desktop. I'm a long time arch user but started looking at alpine as I've gotten a bit fed up with systemd and want a more minimalistic setup (without sacrificing a couple core applications). This was perfect timing as virtualization is almost certainly a requirement for me. I'm keen to see how I can do x forwarding of applications from the vm as well as any inherent security concerns such as ownership of the vmm process. Keep up the great work.

[@TheOpenBSDguy]

Thanks, wish you all the best in your OpenBSD journey

[@ilyes_aiouaz]

Thanks for the share. 👌👍 very interesting content.

[@stellarorbit1341]

That's quite interesting

[@armanmirzaei7988]

Idea, there can be a video on how to have an openbsd laptop have an internal cellular device and use it as reliability internet backup for mission critical professional operations.

[@TheOpenBSDguy]

From what you described, the main challenge is the hardware, I believe. I don't have a laptop with a sim card compartment to test, unfortunately.

[@rato_gordo]

I'm trying to the same install but with debian 12.
I installed successfully it with vmm, I can ping websites and get return, but I cant open any site with w3m or lynx or update with "apt update". Its a network or config issue with debian or with vmm and pf? I changed the mirrors in /etc/apt/source.list

[@halityerlikhan3596]

How slow qemu is comparing to OBSD’s native virtualizer on OBSD?

[@BaronBSOfficial]

Hello mate, does the NAT works if the host it is on wifi?

[@SgtPiper]

But how do i have a gui and stuff?

[@gargamel3478]

vnc on Linux, windows does not expect to be installed in such an environment