Installing a Linux VM on OpenBSD with vmm

Virtual machines are managed by the vmd daemon, so it's required to start it. In the example below, it's enabled too, so it will automatically start at boot.

# rcctl enable vmd
# rcctl start vmd

The command below creates a disk for the VM.

# vmctl create -s 50G disk.qcow2

The command below starts a VM named alpine with 2GB of RAM, on disk disk.qcow2.

# vmctl start -m 2G -L -i 1 -c -d disk.qcow2 alpine

The -L and -i 1 options are there to create a network interface between the host and the VM. If the host allows it in /etc/pf.conf, the VM could access to the Internet.

Another option is to run the start command without the -c flag, to start the VM without attaching to the console. This way it's possible to connect to the VM via SSH, or manually attach to the console with the following command:

# vmctl console alpine

vm "alpine" {
    disable
    memory 2G
    disk "/home/user/path/to/disk.qcow2"
    local interface
}

# rcctl restart vmd

# vmctl start alpine

The command below stops a running VM named alpine.

# vmctl stop alpine

• OpenBSD FAQ #16: Virtualization