bhyve: vde2/openvswitch

[Peter Grehan]

Hi Cory,
> Is there any current support for vde2

  None yet.

> aside from using vde2_plug2tap?
> (Does that even work?  I believe vde2 likes to open the tap interface
> exclusively.  I need to bring up a bhyve test environment to check fully.)
...
> How exactly does the bhyve network stack work through bridging?  I'm
> imaging it's tying in to bridging APIs?

  bhyve uses a tap(4) device. Since that shows up as an ifnet to the 
rest of the system, it can be used in any way an ethernet interface can 
be used. For bridging, the bridge(4) device is used to join tap/ethernet 
interfaces into an L2 bridge.

> I'm assuming bhyve-to-bhyve network communication is also possible?

  Yes, though currently that is through tap/bridge devices.

> I can't imagine it'd be too hard to implement vde2 support for
> networking...it'd give me more control over my VMs and give easier
> integration with SIMH VMs.

> A virtual switch for bhyve would be a useful feature if there aren't any
> plans for one.  Get up there and have it in base. ;)

  This has been talked about quite a bit, though nothing concrete.

> Unrelated: any plans for a special bhyve-to-bhyve communication bus?
> Not too useful of a feature...I can't think of any use for it off-hand
> aside from dedicating a VM to administrating VMs without exposing much
> to the host beyond configurations.

  There should be code going in soon that allows the netmap VALE switch 
to be used for high-speed VM-VM communication. This work also allows 
different network back-ends to be written, so it should be a simple task 
to drop in a vde2 driver.

later,

Peter.