(Research project)

OSX Docker KVM

Run an OSX KVM virtual machine inside a Docker container.

This project permits to run an OSX virtual machine (KVM) inside a Docker container.

Run the Image

To execute the container, you need a working mac_hdd-backing.img. You can obtain one with OSX-KVM project. After that, you can mount the backing storage with the Docker command line and pass the KVM device.

docker run --device /dev/kvm:/dev/kvm -v $PWD/backing:/backing -p 2222:2222 -p 5900:5900 -p 5800:5800 cleafy/sxkdvm

To persist the changes export the snapshot storage somewhere with -v $PWD/snapshot:/snapshot.

Exposed Ports

This VM exposes an ssh connection at 2222 and a VNC server at 5900,5800 ports.

It is possible to access the VM with the following command:

ssh appleuser@localhost -p 2222

Performance Considerations

The environment uses automatic copy-on-write images to provide seamless integration with Docker layered file system. The mechanism mentioned above permits to obtain acceptable performance when running multiple VMs without hogging the storage.

Furthermore, this container uses hardware virtualization technologies, like VT-X or AMD-V, to achieve almost native performance.