PowerPC64 QEMU Instructions
FreeBSD host
FreeBSD can run as VM in QEMU. FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE supports for virtio devices.
This example installs FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE using the following environment/settings:
Host:
- Any running FreeBSD
- Instructions tested on FreeBSD/amd64 running 14-current from August 2022
Guest:
- Machine: pseries
- SMP/CPU count: 8
- RAM: 4GB
- Disk: 100GB
- Network Controller: virtio
- Disk Controller: virtio
Installer Image: FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso (taken from https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/powerpc/powerpc64/ISO-IMAGES/13.1/FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso)
- Video: disabled, using console. Remove "-vga none -nographic" from commands bellow if you want use default VNC video output
Create a disk
qemu-img create -f qcow2 freebsd-disk.qcow2 100G
Boot installer disc
qemu-system-ppc64 -smp 8 -m 4g -drive file=freebsd-disk.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio -net nic,model=virtio -machine pseries,cap-cfpc=broken,cap-sbbc=broken,cap-ibs=broken -vga none -nographic -cdrom FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso -boot d
Boot installed system
Same command used for installing it, but removing -cdrom and -boot options:
qemu-system-ppc64 -smp 8 -m 4g -drive file=freebsd-disk.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio -net nic,model=virtio -machine pseries,cap-cfpc=broken,cap-sbbc=broken,cap-ibs=broken -vga none -nographic
Other Methods
The methods outlined below for Linux for other ways of acquiring images work for FreeBSD host, but with the same command line differences to take out kvm acceleration.
Linux host
FreeBSD can run as VM in QEMU. FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE supports for virtio devices. Huge Pages is also not mandatory anymore when running the VM on Linux hosts
Installing from disc1.iso
This example installs FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE using the following environment/settings:
Host:
- Machine: IBM with POWER8 processor
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (PowerPC64 Little Endian)
- QEMU Version: 4.2.0
Guest:
- Machine: pseries with kvm acceleration
- SMP/CPU count: 8
- RAM: 4GB
- Disk: 100GB
- Network Controller: virtio
- Disk Controller: virtio
Installer Image: FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso (taken from https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/releases/powerpc/powerpc64/ISO-IMAGES/13.1/FreeBSD-13.1-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso)
- Video: disabled, using console. Remove "-vga none -nographic" from commands bellow if you want use default VNC video output
Create a disk
qemu-img create -f qcow2 freebsd-disk.qcow2 100G
Boot installer disc
qemu-system-ppc64 -enable-kvm -smp 8 -m 4g -drive file=freebsd-disk.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio -net nic,model=virtio -machine pseries,accel=kvm,cap-cfpc=broken,cap-sbbc=broken,cap-ibs=broken -vga none -nographic -cdrom FreeBSD-13.0-RELEASE-powerpc-powerpc64-disc1.iso -boot d
Boot installed system
Same command used for installing it, but removing -cdrom and -boot options:
qemu-system-ppc64 -enable-kvm -smp 8 -m 4g -drive file=freebsd-disk.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio -net nic,model=virtio -machine pseries,accel=kvm,cap-cfpc=broken,cap-sbbc=broken,cap-ibs=broken -vga none -nographic
Booting FreeBSD CI's ready-to-use disk image (for developers)
FreeBSD CI infrastructure builds a bootable disk image in qcow2 format that's normally used by CI scripts to validate FreeBSD sanity every time a change is made in the code base. This can also be used by a user or developer wanting to test stuff with a minimal pre-installed, pre-configured system without installing it from the classic CD/DVD disc.
1. Take latest snapshot
wget/fetch https://artifact.ci.freebsd.org/snapshot/head/latest_vm/powerpc/powerpc64/disk.qcow2.zst
2. Uncompress it
unzstd /home/alfredo.junior/tmp/disk.qcow2.zst
3. Boot
qemu-system-ppc64 -enable-kvm -smp 8 -m 4g -drive file=disk.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio -net nic,model=virtio -machine pseries,accel=kvm,cap-cfpc=broken,cap-sbbc=broken,cap-ibs=broken -vga none -nographic
Default user is root without a password.
UNICAMP OpenPower Minicloud
The UNICAMP Minicloud is a OpenPower Cloud maintained by University of Campinas (Brazil). They are an academic member of the OpenPower Foundation and provides free access to POWER virtual machines that can be used for development, testing or migration of applications to POWER. The virtual machines of Minicloud run on OpenStack, which supports running a large number of virtual machines.
Since 20200404 a FreeBSD 13-CURRENT pre-made image has been made available for the public. It can be found in the list of pre-made images under the name "FreeBSD13-head-r359571".
After launching "FreeBSD13-head-r359571", it is recommended to:
- Set a password for "root" user
- Create a regular user (to be used in the SSH forwarding)
Configure network
echo 'ifconfig_vtnet0=DHCP' >> /etc/rc.conf service netif restart
Expand disk partition
Run the command bellow and take notes from partition 3 size (16GB at the time of this writing) and the free size.
gpart show
Resize partition 3 to the new size. If 'gpart show ' shows 16G used on partition 3 and 23G are free, you can resize it to rougly 38G (16-23-1)
gpart resize -i 3 -s 38g -a 4k vtbd0
Resize UFS filesystem
growfs /