SSH

Instead of the limactl shell command, SSH can be used too:

$ limactl ls --format='{{.SSHConfigFile}}' default
/Users/example/.lima/default/ssh.config

$ ssh -F /Users/example/.lima/default/ssh.config lima-default

This is useful for interoperability with other software that expects the SSH connectivity.

Using SSH without additional options

Add the following line to your ~/.ssh/config:

Include ~/.lima/*/ssh.config

Then you can connect directly without specifying -F:

ssh lima-default

This configuration is notably useful for the Remote Development mode of Visual Studio Code.

Using SSH without a config file

If your SSH client does not support a config file, try specifying an equivalent of the following command:

ssh -p <PORT> -i ~/.lima/_config/user -o UserKnownHostsFile=~/.lima/default/ssh.known_hosts -o HostKeyAlias=lima-default 127.0.0.1

The port number can be inspected as follows:

limactl list --format '{{ .SSHLocalPort }}' default

See also .lima/default/ssh.config.

Host key

Lima pins the SSH host key (ed25519 when the guest has one) that the guest presents on the first boot after creating the instance, in ~/.lima/<instance>/ssh.known_hosts, and verifies the key on the later boots. The ssh.config file refers to this file with StrictHostKeyChecking=yes.

If the host key of the guest was changed intentionally (e.g., by reinstalling the SSH server), remove ~/.lima/<instance>/ssh.known_hosts and restart the instance to pin the new key.

For an instance created with Lima prior to v2.3, the key is pinned on the first boot with Lima v2.3 or later.