Three observations on Bhyve

[symbolics at gmx.com]

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 08:30:29AM -0700, Peter Grehan wrote:
> > (1) You can't boot an i386 ISO. It can't load the kernel. I half
> > expected this would be the case. It would be nice if this did work.
> 
>   The loader work isn't too bad to get this going, but the bhyve work is 
> quite a bit more effort since the i386 kernel makes a lot more 
> assumptions about the environment, such as the ability to call back into 
> BIOS.
> 
>   On the TODO list.
> 
> > (2) VirtIO on a raw disc device seems to have some problems. I tried
> > installing using the -BETA1 amd64 ISO. The disc particulars seem to be
> > detected fine but when I try and commit the partition layout I see:
> >
> > 5vtbd0: hard error cmd=write 290-305
> >
> > The disc is a 640GB WD SATA disc and I used the automatic scheme, if it
> > makes any difference.
> 
>   That's bhyve colliding with GEOM. There was a thread a while back 
> about being able to exempt certain block devices from being tasted for 
> iSCSI LUN usage - bhyve will probably need something similar.
> 
> > (3) I tried to use the live environment in order to play around with
> > (2) a bit more but it lacks the necessary /etc/ttys line. It would be
> > great if this wasn't required *somehow*.
> 
>   The ttys issue does need to be addressed. This applies for serial 
> console users as well. Hey, works for Linux :)
> 
> > Should I file PRs for these issues?
> 
>   Yes, always file PRs please :)
> 

Hi Peter,

Filed as 183400, 183401 and 183408.

--sym