Examples

Running Linux commands

lima sudo apt-get install -y neofetch
lima neofetch

Accessing host files

By default, the VM has read-only accesses to /Users/<USERNAME> and read-write accesses to /tmp/lima.

To allow writing to /Users/<USERNAME>:

limactl edit --mount-writable --mount-type=virtiofs

Specifying --mount-type=virtiofs is not necessary here, but it is highly recommended for the best performance and stability.

Running containers

nerdctl.lima run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

limactl start template://docker
export DOCKER_HOST=$(limactl list docker --format 'unix://{{.Dir}}/sock/docker.sock')
docker run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

limactl start template://k8s
export KUBECONFIG=$(limactl list k8s --format 'unix://{{.Dir}}/copied-from-guest/kubeconfig.yaml')
kubectl apply -f ...

http://127.0.0.1:8080 is accessible from the host, as well as from the VM.
For the usage of containerd and nerdctl (contaiNERD ctl), visit https://github.com/containerd/containerd and https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl.
If you have installed Lima by make install, the nerdctl.lima command is also available as nerdctl. If you have installed Lima by brew install lima, you may make an alias (or a symlink) by yourself: alias nerdctl=nerdctl.lima

Advanced configuration

limactl start \
  --name=default \
  --cpus=4 \
  --memory=8 \
  --vm-type=vz \
  --rosetta \
  --mount-type=virtiofs \
  --mount-writable \
  --network=vzNAT \
  template://fedora

--name=default: Set the instance name to “default”
--cpus=4: Set the number of the CPUs to 4
--memory=8: Set the amount of the memory to 8 GiB
--vm-type=vz: Use Apple’s Virtualization.framework (vz) to enable Rosetta, virtiofs, and vzNAT
--rosetta: Allow running Intel (AMD) binaries on ARM
--mount-type=virtiofs: Use virtiofs for better performance
--mount-writable: Make the home mount (/Users/<USERNAME>) writable
--network=vzNAT: Make the VM reachable from the host by its IP address
template://fedora: Use Fedora