FreeBSD The Power to Serve

Sylve — A Unified System Management Platform for FreeBSD

Links:
GitHub URL: https://github.com/AlchemillaHQ/Sylve
CI URL: https://sylve-ci.alchemilla.io
Discord URL: https://discord.gg/bJB826JvXK

Contact: Hayzam Sherif <hayzam@alchemilla.io>

Sylve is a modern, unified system management platform for FreeBSD, inspired by Proxmox. We aim to provide an integrated web interface for managing virtual machines (via Bhyve), Jails, ZFS storage, networking, and firewalling. The backend is implemented in Go, while the frontend uses SvelteKit with Tailwind CSS and ShadCN UI components.

The project emphasizes a minimal system footprint, currently requiring only sysutils/smartmontools, sysutils/tmux, and libvirt as runtime dependencies.

Sylve continues to address a key gap in the FreeBSD ecosystem by delivering a cohesive, user-friendly interface for system administration tasks.

Q2 Progress Highlights

Dashboard

Added dynamic charts to the main summary page, including real-time visualization of CPU usage, RAM usage, and network throughput.

Networking

Interfaces can now be viewed in detail through the UI, with all relevant metadata presented in a structured format.

Users can also create "switches" — simple layer 2 switches built on top of FreeBSD bridge interfaces.

Storage

ZFS integration is nearing completion. Users can now:

  • Create and destroy pools, filesystems, volumes, and snapshots.

  • Delete multiple datasets at once.

  • Schedule automatic (timed) snapshots.

Initial dashboard work for ZFS monitoring has started, with further enhancements planned in Q3.

Utilities

A built-in downloader was introduced that supports both HTTP and magnet links. This is especially useful for fetching ISO images or VM templates directly through the interface.

Virtual Machines

VM creation and deletion with Bhyve is now supported.

Key features include:

  • CPU pinning.

  • Web-based VNC console access.

  • PCI passthrough for devices.

  • Basic CPU and RAM usage charts for each VM.

A new runtime dependency on libvirtd has been added to support VM lifecycle operations.

Planned for Q3

  • Polish and stabilize current functionality.

  • Ability to edit VMs.

  • Expand charting and add a basic notification system to detect hardware or service failures.

  • Implement UI and API support for managing Jails.

  • Extend networking features:

    • More switch/bridge types.

    • Firewall rule configuration.

    • DHCP support via dns/dnsmasq or similar (for VMs).

    • WireGuard VPN integration.

Contributions, testing, and feedback are very welcome. If you are interested in contributing, consider helping with:

  • UI testing and accessibility feedback.

  • Bug reports and feature requests via GitHub.

Sponsor: FreeBSD Foundation and Alchemilla (development and infrastructure support)

Last modified on: August 29, 2025 by Lorenzo Salvadore