Development On Apple Silicon with Lima

"Lima launches Linux virtual machines with automatic file sharing and port forwarding (similar to WSL2)." – Lima Website

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In this article, I'll demonstrate how to provision a Virtual Machine for software development that currently lacks support for Apple silicon. I'll be utilizing Lima VMs to establish development and testing environments specifically tailored for the cri-o project.

Installation #

It's better to install Lima with brew, follow the instruction here.

Create VM #

Next step is create a VM:

limactl create crio
INFO[0000] Creating an instance "crio" from template://default (Not from template://crio)
WARN[0000] This form is deprecated. Use `limactl create --name=crio template://default` instead
? Creating an instance "crio"  [Use arrows to move, type to filter]
  Proceed with the current configuration
> Open an editor to review or modify the current configuration
  Choose another template (docker, podman, archlinux, fedora, ...)
  Exit

Choose the "Open an editor to review or modify the current configuration" option to review and modify the VM configuration. (Ensure the $EDITOR variable is declared to utilize this option).

The arch option:

arch: x86_64

If you choose wrong arch option the following error will be raised:

INFO[0028] Starting the instance "crio" with VM driver "qemu"
INFO[0028] QEMU binary "/opt/homebrew/bin/qemu-system-aarch64" seems properly signed with the "com.apple.security.hypervisor" entitlement
FATA[0023] [skipped to download: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/23.10/release-20240125/ubuntu-23.10-server-cloudimg-amd64.img": unsupported arch: "x86_64"]

As you can see from the lima.yaml file, the default template is Ubuntu 23.10 on x86_64.

We'll use unstable artifacts from the kubic repository.

Lets mount the directory with project:

mounts:
  # Location of cri-o repository
  - location: "~/Documents/dev/opensource/cri-o"
    writable: true

Next add provision scripts in order to install all needed runtime dependencies:

Upgrade the instance on boot

upgradePackages: true

The provision option, this part follows the install.md guide:

provision:
# `system` is executed with the root privilege
- mode: system
  script: |
    #!/bin/bash
    # Install deps
    set -eux -o pipefail
    export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
    export OS=xUbuntu_22.04
    export VERSION=1.24
    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/libcontainers-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/$OS/ /" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable.list
    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/libcontainers-crio-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable:/cri-o:/$VERSION/$OS/ /" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable:cri-o:$VERSION.list
    mkdir -p /usr/share/keyrings
    curl -L https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/$OS/Release.key | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/libcontainers-archive-keyring.gpg
    curl -L https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable:/cri-o:/$VERSION/$OS/Release.key | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/libcontainers-crio-archive-keyring.gpg
    apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y \
      libbtrfs-dev \
      containers-common \
      git \
      bats \
      libassuan-dev \
      libdevmapper-dev \
      libglib2.0-dev \
      libc6-dev \
      libgpgme-dev \
      libgpg-error-dev \
      libseccomp-dev \
      libsystemd-dev \
      libselinux1-dev \
      pkg-config \
      go-md2man \
      cri-o-runc \
      libudev-dev \
      software-properties-common \
      gcc \
      make
    # Install golang
    wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.21.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz -O go.tar.gz
    tar -C /usr/local -xzvf go.tar.gz
    rm -rf go
    echo 'export GOROOT=/usr/local/go' >> ~/.profile
    echo 'export GOPATH=$HOME/go' >> ~/.profile
    echo 'export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.profile
# `user` is executed without the root privilege
- mode: user
  script: |
    #!/bin/bash
    set -eux -o pipefail
    echo 'export GOROOT=/usr/local/go' >> ~/.bashrc
    echo 'export GOPATH=$HOME/go' >> ~/.bashrc
    echo 'export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc

Now everything is ready to bootstrat our VM, close editor start the VM:

limactl start crio
INFO[0000] Using the existing instance "crio"
INFO[0000] Starting the instance "crio" with VM driver "qemu"
INFO[0000] [hostagent] hostagent socket created at /Users/user/.lima/crio/ha.sock
INFO[0001] [hostagent] Using system firmware ("/opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-x86_64-code.fd")
INFO[0001] [hostagent] Starting QEMU (hint: to watch the boot progress, see "/Users/user/.lima/crio/serial*.log")
INFO[0001] SSH Local Port: 52867
INFO[0001] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: "ssh"
INFO[0041] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: "ssh"
INFO[0051] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: "ssh"
INFO[0061] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 4: "ssh"
INFO[0067] [hostagent] The essential requirement 1 of 4 is satisfied
INFO[0067] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0107] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0147] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0188] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0228] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0268] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 4: "user session is ready for ssh"

You can check the logs of VM here:

tail -f /Users/user/.lima/crio/serial.log

If everything is functioning properly, after starting the VM, executing the limactl shell crio command should open a shell and process the last commands.

sudo -i
git clone https://github.com/containers/conmon
cd conmon
env "PATH=$PATH" make
env "PATH=$PATH" make install
# Link runc to tests
ln -s /usr/local/bin/runc /usr/bin/runc

Lets start some tests:

# We need pass PATH variable to the sh shell
sudo -E env "PATH=$PATH" make testunit

Tip 🆒

How to configure lima and VSCode : Remote - SSH plugin.

Happy coding!