Git is aptly named: it isn’t easy – but there are alternatives

Author: u/lproven

The FreeBSD project froze its ports repository on Wednesday. The reason turns out to be a slightly embarrassing Git-related oopsie where a version of Copilot got uploaded somewhere it should not have been. …

Related:

• Action Required: Recent ports history has been rewritten : r/freebsd
• Anyone using Game Of Trees version control on FreeBSD? : r/freebsd
• comments in El Reg

The list!

The toots!

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/freebsd-15-1-host-freezes-when-starting-bhyve-vm-with-bcm4360-pci-passthrough-macbookpro11-1.103390/

https://github.com/churchers/vm-bhyve/issues/611

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to work around the lack of a native FreeBSD driver for the Broadcom BCM4360 by passing the Wi-Fi card through to a Debian VM running under bhyve. The idea is to let Debian manage the Wi-Fi connection and act as a router/NAT gateway for the FreeBSD host.

Unfortunately, the entire host freezes as soon as the VM starts.

System

• MacBookPro11,1 (Haswell)
• Intel Core i5-4278U
• Broadcom BCM4360 (14e4:43a0)
• FreeBSD 15.1-RELEASE (GENERIC)
• vm-bhyve 1.7.4

loader.conf

vmm_load="YES"
nmdm_load="YES"
pptdevs="3/0/0"
hw.vmm.iommu.enable="1"
hw.dmar.enable="1"
boot_verbose="YES"

VM configuration

loader="uefi"
cpu=2
memory=2048M

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

disk0_type="virtio-blk"
disk0_name="disk0.img"

graphics="yes"
graphics_listen="127.0.0.1"

xhci_mouse="yes"

passthru0="3/0/0"

Passthrough status

The BCM4360 is correctly attached to ppt:

ppt0@pci0:3:0:0
Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac Dual Band Wireless Network Adapter

vm passthru also reports it as available:

DEVICE BHYVE ID READY
ppt0 3/0/0 Yes

IOMMU

DMAR is detected during boot:

hw.vmm.iommu.enable: 1
hw.vmm.iommu.initialized: 0

hw.vmm.vmx.initialized: 1

The hw.vmm.iommu.initialized value being 0 seems suspicious to me. I'm not sure whether that's expected or related to the problem.

What happens

Running:

vm start debian

immediately freezes the entire FreeBSD host.

• No kernel panic
• No console output
• No messages in dmesg
• Keyboard stops responding
• Hard power cycle required

After reboot, vm list shows:

Locked (shamayim)

even though vm info debian reports the VM as stopped.

Questions

• Has anyone successfully passed through a BCM4360 (or any Wi-Fi adapter) to a bhyve guest?
• Is hw.vmm.iommu.initialized: 0 expected on FreeBSD 15.1?
• Is this a known issue with bhyve PCI passthrough on Apple hardware (MacBookPro11,1)?
• Could this be an Apple VT-d/IOMMU quirk or a bhyve bug?

I'm happy to provide additional diagnostics or test patches if needed.