VirtualBox on FreeBSD

Update 2023-01-09

Unless you want to use it locally for desktop, use bhyve instead. It’s pretty good now.

Preface

Oh hey I’m back to using this crap because my server isn’t quite compatible with SmartOS. At least it saved me from reinstalling everything (plain zpool mirror to physical disk from Hyper-V guest).

Versions

  • FreeBSD: 11.0-RELEASE-p2
  • VirtualBox: 5.1.14_2
  • phpvirtualbox: 5.0.5

Notes

  • phpvirtualbox shows warning on start about wrong version but it’s working anyway
  • Make sure php process has access to its session directory
  • Some weird combination doesn’t quite work causing mysterious crash
    • Windows 7 32-bit
    • virtio network adapter
    • 2D video acceleration
    • SSD type disk
    • something else I don’t remember
  • Initial config available at FreeBSD wiki
  • Don’t bother installing the one with GUI, it doesn’t work (segfault on start) on
    • vncserver with either XFCE or Fluxbox
    • Xming
  • No guest iso is installed (has been the case since forever)
  • Network performance seems ok with 80 MB/s Windows guest copying from external NAS
  • Otherwise it seems to be functional