On: OpenBSD vmm enabled

[ysleepy]

Surprised that it's not a port of bhyve.

I also found some slides from the authors of vmm/vmd:

http://bhyvecon.org/bhyvecon2016-Mike.pdf

http://bhyvecon.org/bhyvecon2016-Reyk.pdf

(found on https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve)

[notaplumber → ysleepy]

bhyvecon was held at the same time as AsiaBSDcon, Mike Larkin & Reyk Flöter were invited to speak. I think OpenBSD vmm/vmd was announced around the same time, so it became an informal "BSD virtualization" event.

Mike's original announcement of virtualization support answered the 'why' regarding porting another hypervisor, but honestly for something as security critical as this, I'm glad they took their time to design something for OpenBSD's needs.

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=144104398132541&w=2

[ams6110 → ysleepy]

OpenBSD and FreeBSD diverged long enough ago that a port might not be straightforward, or in alignment with the objectives of the project.

[derefr → ams6110]

Bigger things have been ported across wider gaps. Illumos has a "port" of Linux's KVM!

[4ad → derefr]

Yeah, and the KVM in illumos comes from a now obsolete Linux, and the pf in FreeBSD and Solaris comes from a now obsolete OpenBSD.

If anything, this should teach us not to port unportable things from different operating systems, because the maintenance cost is untenable.

[phessler → 4ad]

Solaris' port of PF is not out of date. _And_ they are working with upstream to merge their changes so both parties have a) better code, and b) less maintenance burden.

[allanjude → 4ad]

iianm, Solaris has a port of IPF, not pf. Oracle is working on trying to port pf now.

[4ad → allanjude]

The pf has been ported and it shipped already in Solaris 11.3. It is based on OpenBSD 5.5 code.