- macOS - 10.11+, (xHyve relies on Hypervisor framework, specific to macOS).
- OpenZFS for OSX v1.6+, available here.
ZFS pool on my workstation, looks like this:
⇢ zpool list
NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT
Studio 952G 746G 206G - 36% 78% 1.10x ONLINE -
Studio pool, contains VMs dataset (created earlier, by just: zfs create Studio/VMs)
⇢ zfs list Studio/VMs
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
Studio/VMs 65.9G 176G 57.0G /Studio/VMs
This dataset will be used to store zvol for our virtual machines. Now create 50GiB zvol device like this:
zfs create -sV 50g Studio/VMs/xhyve-1.zvol
NOTE: If macOS screams about uninitialized disk, click ignore. It doesn't affect process here. Later please use this solution: https://openzfsonosx.org/wiki/Suppressing_the_annoying_pop-up, to get rid of that popup.
In my case all I had to do this to get rid of it:
sudo gdisk /dev/rdisk3
p # to see partitions, by default there will be 1 and 2
t # change partition type
1 # of first partition of rdisk3
6A898CC3-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631 # with this UUID
w # write changes, sync
y # and… no more popups!
If you're as lazy as me, just do:
printf "t\n1\n6A898CC3-1DD2-11B2-99A6-080020736631\nw\nY\nq\n" | sudo gdisk /dev/rdisk3
After successful zvol creation, a virtual device will be assigned to it automatically. To find out name of the device try this:
ioreg -trn "ZVOL Studio/VMs/xhyve-1.zvol Media" | grep "BSD Name"
to find out assigned N of /dev/rdiskN.
Now edit bin/boot.sh file and replace /dev/rdisk3 by your device name. Note that ioreg said "/dev/diskN", yet we used /dev/rdiskN" in bin/boot.sh.
Next - download most recent installer img from official HardenedBSD site. Copy absolute path to unpacked img file on disk.
Boot installer:
bin/boot_installer.sh
Complete the standard installation process. In my case - I picked ZFS auto guided installation, which means I have ZFS zvol under ZFS on host machine. After installation process it's nothing else but:
bin/boot.sh
To boot from your new VM. To boot continuous boot mode, do:
bin/boot_continuous.sh
BSD / MIT compliant.