We don't currently support importing existing VMs or jails from other managers, or even from users' own handwritten configurations. That was a conscious design decision. There are simply too many different ways to configure jails, and even VMs on FreeBSD have enough variations that supporting every possible layout would add a lot of complexity for relatively little benefit.
I could see an argument for importing from widely used platforms like Proxmox or VMware, but even that probably doesn't make much sense until bhyve reaches closer feature parity with them.
That said, you *can* import existing VM disks. If the guest is UEFI-based, it'll usually boot just fine because VMs have far fewer configuration knobs than jails.
P.S. If you're going to try Sylve, I'd recommend using the latest `tip` release from GitHub. The FreeBSD port is a little behind at the moment. I'll probably get around to updating it soon™
hayzam
npub1mk…tp9nh
2026-07-29 16:31:29 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…m86r
Author Public Key
npub1mkdnswaugvl37c7supqakup3xj6g9gg8w8jlnteule7vgyzfedaqjtp9nhSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-07-29 16:31:29 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "We don't currently support importing existing VMs or jails from other managers, or even from users' own handwritten configurations. That was a conscious design decision. There are simply too many different ways to configure jails, and even VMs on FreeBSD have enough variations that supporting every possible layout would add a lot of complexity for relatively little benefit.\n\nI could see an argument for importing from widely used platforms like Proxmox or VMware, but even that probably doesn't make much sense until bhyve reaches closer feature parity with them.\n\nThat said, you *can* import existing VM disks. If the guest is UEFI-based, it'll usually boot just fine because VMs have far fewer configuration knobs than jails.\n\nP.S. If you're going to try Sylve, I'd recommend using the latest `tip` release from GitHub. The FreeBSD port is a little behind at the moment. I'll probably get around to updating it soon™",
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