hn(4)

hn4

Hyper-v network virtual service consumer

Usage

To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in the system kernel configuration file:

device hyperv

Overview

The hv_netvsc driver implements the virtual network device for FreeBSD guest partitions running on Hyper-V. FreeBSD guest partitions running on Hyper-V do not have direct access to network devices attached to the Hyper-V server. Although a FreeBSD guest can access network devices using Hyper-V's full emulation mode, the performance in this mode tends to be unsatisfactory.

To counter the above issues, the hv_netvsc driver implements a network Virtual Service Consumer (VSC) that relays network requests from the guest partition to the network Virtual Service Provider (VSP) hosted in the root partition using the high performance data exchange infrastructure provided by hv_vmbus(4) driver. The VSP in the root partition then forwards the network related requests to the physical network card.

Releases

Unchanged in 5 releases since FreeBSD 14.4-RELEASE.

  1. 14.4–16.0

History

Support for hv_netvsc first appeared in FreeBSD 10.0. The driver was developed through a joint effort between Citrix Incorporated, Microsoft Corporation, and Network Appliance Incorporated.

Authors

FreeBSD support for hv_netvsc was first added by Microsoft BSD Integration Services Team ⟨[email protected]⟩.

From base 16.0-CURRENT-20261027-61c70dc16a79 in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT (2026-10-27). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.