This entry documents a very basic install of a FreeBSD guest using qemu, since I only need it for porting activities. The qmeu host is headless, so everything is handled via the command line.
First, install the following packages:
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends qemu-utils qemu-system-x86
Add yourself to the kvm group to allow VM management without becoming root:
sudo adduser <username> kvm
To provide a home for the VMs, I added a new 100G partition and mounted it on /vm.
Download the FreeBSD 14.0 boot only iso from:
https://download.freebsd.org/releases/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso
Create a disk image for the FreeBSD VM:
qemu-img create -f qcow2 /vm/freebsd/disks/freebsd.qcow 30G
Then, start the install with the following command:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2G \
-hda /vm/freebsd/disks/freebsd.qcow \
-cdrom /vm/freebsd/FreeBSD-14.0-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso -boot d \
-display curses
This runs the install via a curses-based console. If you want a serial console, run the following commands once the FreeBSD system is installed and you've logged in.
echo '-S115200 -Dh' > /boot.config cat <<EOT >>/boot/loader.conf boot_multicons="YES" boot_serial="YES" console=comconsole EOT
Then use -nographic instead of the display option when
booting the instance. From this
post.
To boot the FreeBSD VM, with no console and access via ssh, the following command may be used:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2G \ -net nic -net user,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \ -hda /vm/freebsd/disks/freebsd.qcow \ -display vnc=127.0.0.1:0
This allows an ssh login from the host via port 2222 on the host, which is mapped to port 22 on the guest:
ssh -p 2222 localhost
