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Installation

Supported host OS:

  • macOS (the latest version is recommended)
  • Linux
  • NetBSD (untested)
  • DragonFlyBSD (untested)
  • Windows (untested)

Prerequisite:

  • QEMU (Required, only if QEMU driver is used)
brew install lima

Homebrew formula is available here. Supports macOS and Linux.

sudo port install lima

Port: https://ports.macports.org/port/lima/

nix-env -i lima

Nix file: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/by-name/li/lima/package.nix

Download the binary archive of Lima from https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases, and extract it under /usr/local (or somewhere else).

VERSION=$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/lima-vm/lima/releases/latest | jq -r .tag_name)
curl -fsSL "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/download/${VERSION}/lima-${VERSION:1}-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m).tar.gz" | tar Cxzvm /usr/local

# For Lima v1.1 onward
curl -fsSL "https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/releases/download/${VERSION}/lima-additional-guestagents-${VERSION:1}-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m).tar.gz" | tar Cxzvm /usr/local

1 - Source Installation

Installing from Source

If you prefer to build Lima from source, follow these steps:

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following dependencies installed:

  • git
  • go
  • make

Build and Install

Run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/lima-vm/lima
cd lima
make
sudo make install

Note: sudo make install is required unless you have write permissions for /usr/local. Otherwise, installation may fail.

Alternative Installation (Without Sudo)

If you prefer installing Lima in your home directory, configure the PREFIX and PATH as follows:

make PREFIX=$HOME/.local install
export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

Packaging Lima for Distribution

After building Lima from source, you may want to package it for installation on other machines:

  1. The package for the core component and the native guest agent:
make clean native
cd _output
tar czf lima-package.tar.gz *
  1. The package for the additional guest agents:
make clean additional-guestagents
cd _output
tar czf lima-additional-guestagents-package.tar.gz *

These packages can then be transferred and installed on the target system.