macOS

Running macOS guests is experimentally supported since Lima v2.1.

limactl start template:macos

A password prompt is shown during creating an instance, so as to run the chown root:wheel ~/.lima/_mnt/0/... command on the host. This password is not used for setting up the user account in the VM.

The user password is randomly generated and stored in the ~/password file in the VM. Consider changing it after the first login.

limactl shell macos cat /Users/${USER}.guest/password

Difference from Linux guests

• Password login is enabled
• Password-less sudo is disabled
• Several features are not implemented yet. See Caveats below.

Caveats

• No support for graceful limactl stop. Shutdown the VM from the GUI, or use limactl stop -f with caution.
• No support for turning off the video display.
• No support for mounting host directories. Use limactl cp or limactl shell --sync to share files with the host.
• No support for automatic port forwarding. Use ssh -L to manually set up port forwarding, or, use the vzNAT network to access the guest by its IP.
• No support for installing custom caCerts