Apple Container external driver for macOS #3839

afbjorklund · 2025-08-15T16:47:07Z

A new macOS driver similar to the WSL2 driver for Windows,
creating virtual machines from container images (as rootfs).

make native && ADDITIONAL_DRIVERS=ac make additional-drivers

(this is a draft, until the driver framework has been finalized)

The Lima container drivers #3829

A new macOS driver similar to the WSL2 driver for Windows, creating virtual machines from container images (as rootfs). Signed-off-by: Anders F Björklund <anders.f.bjorklund@gmail.com>

AkihiroSuda · 2025-08-18T03:03:00Z

pkg/driver/ac/ac_driver_darwin.go

+	if l.Instance != nil {
+		info.InstanceDir = l.Instance.Dir
+	}
+	info.DriverName = "ac"


"ac" isn't a descriptive name.
Can't we just call it "apple-container" ?

You are breaking @afbjorklund's pun about AC/DC (Apple Container/Debian Container). 🤣

I think we will abandon those before merging, also they didn't rhyme with "WSL2" anyway (WC? 🚽)

We use "vz" for Virtualization.framework, so I thought we could use "ac" for Apple Container

Using "cz" is a bit non-obvious, and there is no Containerization.framework - only a Swift library...

/usr/local/bin/container: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 2000.62.0) /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.12) /usr/lib/libbz2.1.0.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.8) /usr/lib/liblzma.5.dylib (compatibility version 6.0.0, current version 6.3.0) /usr/lib/libarchive.2.dylib (compatibility version 9.0.0, current version 9.2.0) /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 7.0.0) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1356.0.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 4037.0.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/CryptoKit.framework/Versions/A/CryptoKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 4037.0.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/Network.framework/Versions/A/Network (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 5569.0.219) /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 61901.0.56) /System/Library/Frameworks/Virtualization.framework/Versions/A/Virtualization (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 259.0.0) /System/Library/Frameworks/vmnet.framework/Versions/A/vmnet (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftCore.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftCoreFoundation.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 120.100.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftCoreImage.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 2.2.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftDarwin.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 347.0.12) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftDispatch.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 56.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftIOKit.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftMetal.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 370.57.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftOSLog.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 8.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftObjectiveC.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 948.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftQuartzCore.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 5.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftSynchronization.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 0.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftUniformTypeIdentifiers.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 874.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftXPC.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 105.0.13) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_Builtin_float.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 0.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_Concurrency.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 0.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_StringProcessing.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 0.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftos.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1076.0.0) /usr/lib/swift/libswiftsimd.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 23.0.0, weak) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_errno.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 347.0.12) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_stdio.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 347.0.12) /usr/lib/swift/libswift_signal.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 347.0.12)

The use of "hvf" for Hypervisor.framework and "vz" for Virtualization.framework is confusing enough

AkihiroSuda · 2025-08-18T03:03:19Z

templates/experimental/ac.yaml

+- location: "debian-rootfs-arm64.tar.gz"
+  arch: "aarch64"
+
+# virtiofs is broken


Needs description

It is related to an upstream bug, where containers with volumes can't be restarted.

AkihiroSuda · 2025-08-18T03:03:42Z

templates/experimental/ac.yaml

+disk: 512GiB
+
+images:
+- location: "debian-rootfs-arm64.tar.gz"


Incomplete location

It was built from source: #3788 (comment) - but needs to be hosted somewhere, like the Finch image.

# Source: https://github.com/runfinch/finch-core/blob/main/rootfs/Dockerfile (image based on fedora) - location: "https://deps.runfinch.com/common/x86-64/finch-rootfs-production-amd64-1741837119.tar.gz"

AkihiroSuda · 2025-08-18T03:04:12Z

templates/experimental/ac.yaml

+arch: aarch64
+cpus: 4
+memory: 1GiB
+disk: 512GiB


Other template files do not set cpus, memory, disk, etc.

I think it predates the code that actually forwarded those flags... Disk seems to be hardcoded, though.

AkihiroSuda · 2025-08-18T03:04:53Z

pkg/cidata/cidata.TEMPLATE.d/boot/02-wsl2-ac-setup.sh

-# when using a WSL2 VM.
-[ "$LIMA_CIDATA_VMTYPE" = "wsl2" ] || exit 0
+# when using a WSL2 or AC VM.
+[ "$LIMA_CIDATA_VMTYPE" = "wsl2" ] || [ "$LIMA_CIDATA_VMTYPE" = "ac" ] || exit 0


The provision scripts should not be aware of the VM driver names

This is currently necessary because drivers don't yet have the capability to provide their own boot scripts. We briefly touched on this on Slack in the #lima-gsoc channel¹. @unsuman is aware.

Footnotes

https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C08KKELMQ92/p1755330101367019?thread_ts=1755325617.281999&cid=C08KKELMQ92 ↩

Another option is to introduce a common feature variable ("container" ?), that all three drivers can set.

afbjorklund · 2025-08-18T19:36:30Z

pkg/store/instance_darwin.go

+)
+
+func inspectStatus(instDir string, inst *Instance, y *limayaml.LimaYAML) {
+	if inst.VMType == limayaml.AC {


This function will be moved to the driver, eventually:

refactor: move driver specific code to drivers #3770

afbjorklund mentioned this pull request Aug 15, 2025

Docker Container external driver for Linux #3840

Draft

afbjorklund force-pushed the ac branch 2 times, most recently from 6c1f904 to 33feb79 Compare August 15, 2025 19:27

Apple Container external driver

6747b7b

A new macOS driver similar to the WSL2 driver for Windows, creating virtual machines from container images (as rootfs). Signed-off-by: Anders F Björklund <anders.f.bjorklund@gmail.com>

afbjorklund force-pushed the ac branch from 33feb79 to 6747b7b Compare August 15, 2025 19:35

afbjorklund changed the title ~~Apple Container external driver~~ Apple Container external driver for macOS Aug 16, 2025

AkihiroSuda reviewed Aug 18, 2025

View reviewed changes

afbjorklund commented Aug 18, 2025

View reviewed changes

afbjorklund mentioned this pull request Aug 18, 2025

Remove VMType check from the lima-init boot script #3861

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