illumos / Propolis Backend

vmctl includes experimental support for running VMs on illumos using the Propolis hypervisor (bhyve-based).

Requirements

• illumos-based OS (OmniOS, SmartOS, etc.)
• propolis-server installed and runnable
• ZFS pool (default: rpool)
• nebula-vm zone brand installed

How It Works

The Propolis backend manages VMs as illumos zones:

1. Prepare: Creates a ZFS clone from {pool}/images/{vm}@latest to {pool}/vms/{vm}.
2. Start: Boots the zone with zoneadm -z {vm} boot, waits for propolis-server on 127.0.0.1:12400, then sends the instance spec and run command via REST API.
3. Stop: Sends a stop command to propolis-server, then halts the zone.
4. Destroy: Stops the VM, uninstalls the zone (zoneadm uninstall -F), deletes the zone config (zonecfg delete -F), and destroys the ZFS dataset.

Networking

Uses illumos VNICs for exclusive-IP zone networking:

network "vnic" {
    name "vnic0"
}

Limitations

• Suspend/resume not yet implemented.
• Console endpoint (WebSocket) is defined but not fully integrated.
• VNC address not yet exposed.

Building for illumos

cargo build --release -p vmctl --target x86_64-unknown-illumos