Virtual Network Interfaces

Examples of some possible network configurations. All guests support multiple network interfaces.

Basic Example, Connected to 'public' virtual switch

network0_type="virtio-net"
network0_switch="public"

Custom MAC Address

Please note that on first run, all network interfaces are assigned a static MAC address automatically by vm-bhyve if they don't have one. This MAC address is then written to the configuration file.

network0_type="virtio-net"
network0_switch="public"
network0_mac="00:11:22:33:44:55"

The bhyve hypervisor only accepts custom MAC addresses starting with 58:9c:fc and will refuse to boot otherwise (irrespective of the guest OS) without any useful error message.

Custom Network Device

By default vm-bhyve will create a dynamic tap device for each interface. If you want to do something complex, requiring manual network settings, this can be a problem as the device doesn't exist until you start the guest.

By specifying a custom device you can configure this device yourself via rc.conf. Note that I have left the switch configuration option out. If specified, the tap device will be automatically attached to the virtual switch. If you have already configured the custom device as required you may not want this, so can leave the switch settings out.

network0_type="virtio-net"
network0_device="tap0"