provision.file escapes file contents (tabs become \t)

[josharian]

Description

When using provision.mode: data with the file: field, tab characters are escaped to \t inside the VM. The copied file no longer matches the original.

Discovered when a formatter changed tabs to spaces and our copied-in scripts stopped working.

Reproduction script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

cat > lima.yaml <<'YAML'
images:
  - location: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-arm64.img"
    arch: "aarch64"

provision:
  - mode: data
    path: /tmp/file_with_tab.txt
    file: ./file_with_tab.txt
YAML

printf 'a\tb\n' > file_with_tab.txt
echo "ORIGINAL FILE CONTENT:"
cat file_with_tab.txt
od -c file_with_tab.txt
shasum -a 256 file_with_tab.txt

limactl --version
limactl create -y --name tabtest lima.yaml
limactl start tabtest
echo "FILE CONTENT INSIDE LIMA INSTANCE:"
limactl shell tabtest sudo cat /tmp/file_with_tab.txt
limactl shell tabtest sudo od -c /tmp/file_with_tab.txt
limactl shell tabtest sudo shasum -a 256 /tmp/file_with_tab.txt
limactl delete -f tabtest
rm lima.yaml file_with_tab.txt

On my machine, this prints:

$ ./lima_tab_escape_test.sh
ORIGINAL FILE CONTENT:
a       b
0000000    a  \t   b  \n
0000004
5dd1197866f479824d9b483e1b7ae9ad3e518f3b4fd447c6b92d127dda6178c5  file_with_tab.txt
limactl version 1.2.1
INFO[0000] Terminal is not available, proceeding without opening an editor
INFO[0000] Attempting to download the image              arch=aarch64 digest= location="https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-arm64.img"
INFO[0000] Using cache "/Users/josh/Library/Caches/lima/download/by-url-sha256/7c8e4507222e57734b580a24bf30b7828afaae43c2f040f6e0977f45669ce961/data"
INFO[0002] Attempting to download the nerdctl archive    arch=aarch64 digest="sha256:544fa1e518155fcc01a117ea49819d12d96b4dacfb2b62922f9f7956dc9f6dc8" location="https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl/releases/download/v2.1.3/nerdctl-full-2.1.3-linux-arm64.tar.gz"
INFO[0002] Using cache "/Users/josh/Library/Caches/lima/download/by-url-sha256/46d9ee12c9f3f484518470db8093719f2b3ddca7daa6f1741c71e0aeb198db2a/data"
INFO[0002] Run `limactl start tabtest` to start the instance.
INFO[0000] Using the existing instance "tabtest"
INFO[0000] Starting the instance "tabtest" with VM driver "vz"
INFO[0000] [hostagent] hostagent socket created at /Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/ha.sock
INFO[0000] [hostagent] Starting VZ (hint: to watch the boot progress, see "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/serial*.log")
INFO[0001] SSH Local Port: 51709
INFO[0000] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 2: "ssh"
INFO[0000] [hostagent] [VZ] - vm state change: running
INFO[0010] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 2: "ssh"
INFO[0011] [hostagent] The essential requirement 1 of 2 is satisfied
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 2 of 2: "user session is ready for ssh"
INFO[0011] [hostagent] The essential requirement 2 of 2 is satisfied
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Waiting for the optional requirement 1 of 2: "systemd must be available"
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Guest agent is running
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding TCP [::]:22
INFO[0011] [hostagent] The optional requirement 1 of 2 is satisfied
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding UDP 127.0.0.54:53
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding UDP 127.0.0.53:53
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Waiting for the optional requirement 2 of 2: "containerd binaries to be installed"
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding UDP 192.168.5.15:68
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding TCP 0.0.0.0:22
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding TCP 127.0.0.54:53
INFO[0011] [hostagent] Not forwarding TCP 127.0.0.53:53
INFO[0026] [hostagent] Forwarding TCP from 127.0.0.1:39303 to 127.0.0.1:39303
INFO[0026] [hostagent] The optional requirement 2 of 2 is satisfied
INFO[0026] [hostagent] Waiting for the guest agent to be running
INFO[0026] [hostagent] Waiting for the final requirement 1 of 1: "boot scripts must have finished"
INFO[0035] [hostagent] The final requirement 1 of 1 is satisfied
INFO[0035] READY. Run `limactl shell tabtest` to open the shell.
FILE CONTENT INSIDE LIMA INSTANCE:
a\tb
0000000   a   \   t   b  \n
0000005
11b6ca2e51aac96230cefaba7840c12a9a1ae229d967b636c2700d7e06160353  /tmp/file_with_tab.txt
INFO[0000] Sending SIGKILL to the vz driver process 22490
INFO[0000] Sending SIGKILL to the host agent process 22490
INFO[0000] Removing *.pid *.sock *.tmp under "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/default_ep.sock"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/default_fd.sock"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/ha.pid"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/ha.sock"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/ssh.sock"
INFO[0000] Removing "/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest/vz.pid"
INFO[0000] Deleted "tabtest" ("/Users/josh/.lima/tabtest")

System info:

$ uname -a
Darwin jm3.local 25.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 25.0.0: Wed Sep 17 21:38:50 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.1.9~141/RELEASE_ARM64_T6031 arm64
$ limactl --version
limactl version 1.2.1

[jandubois]

Thank you for the report! Fix (actually workaround, as it is an upstream issue in yqlib) is in #4269.