Propolis is mostly intended to be used via a REST API to drive all of its
functionality. The standard cargo build will produce a propolis-server
binary you can run:
# propolis-server run <config_file> <ip:port>
Note that the server must run as root. One way to ensure propolis-server has
sufficient privileges is by using pfexec(1), as such:
# pfexec propolis-server run <config_file> <ip:port>
Note: the goal is to move the device config from the toml to instead be configured via REST API calls.
bootrom = "/path/to/bootrom/OVMF_CODE.fd"
[block_dev.alpine_iso]
type = "file"
path = "/path/to/alpine-extended-3.12.0-x86_64.iso"
[dev.block0]
driver = "pci-virtio-block"
block_dev = "alpine_iso"
pci-path = "0.4.0"
[dev.net0]
driver = "pci-virtio-viona"
vnic = "vnic_name"
pci-path = "0.5.0"When running the server by hand, the appropriate bootrom is required to start guests properly. See the standalone documentation for more details. Details for creating necessary vnics can be found there as well, if exposing network devices to the guest.
Once you've got propolis-server running you can interact with it via the REST
API with any of the usual suspects (e.g. cURL, wget). Alternatively, there's a
propolis-cli binary to make things a bit easier:
The following CLI commands will create a VM, start the VM, and then attach to its serial console:
# propolis-cli -s <propolis ip> -p <propolis port> new <VM name>
# propolis-cli -s <propolis ip> -p <propolis port> state <VM name> run
# propolis-cli -s <propolis ip> -p <propolis port> serial <VM name>