Support VZ VMs

[msgilligan]

Lima supports VZ (Apple's hypervisor) in addition to QEMU, but the current master branch doesn't.

This commit by @nxmatic seems claims to add support. It would be nice to identify the key changes in that commit and make a PR here to add support for VZ.

[NoahBres]

This commit by @nxmatic seems to add support

Not sure if this is the case. Have you verified this yourself? The commit title seems to indicate WIP.
Their branch does not build and it seems to have some invalid settings that are a poor merging of rosetta-builder.

E.g.:
There exists these two lines:

      efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;
      systemd-boot = enable;

https://github.com/nxmatic/nixos-lima/blob/b10b6d1b05ef306414d1aac5c637706942116128/nixos.nix#L62-L63

which should not be under loader.grub and look like they are lifted from:
https://github.com/cpick/nix-rosetta-builder/blob/63d84c75f2f76983d69c1faa712f22345fc7b5c7/package.nix#L46

However, struggling to get vz working myself.
Switching the current nixos.yaml, in this project's root, to use vmType: vz and mount to vitriofs is not sufficient and causes initial setup to hang forever with the following:

INFO[0004] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 2: "ssh"
INFO[0004] [hostagent] [VZ] - vm state change: running
INFO[0014] [hostagent] Waiting for the essential requirement 1 of 2: "ssh"
INFO[0018] [hostagent] 2025/02/22 16:57:31 tcpproxy: for incoming conn 127.0.0.1:61707, error dialing "192.168.5.15:22": connect tcp 192.168.5.15:22: no route to host

[msgilligan]

Not sure if this is the case. Have you verified this yourself?

I have not. (I probably should have said "claims to add support" rather than "seems to add support")

[msgilligan]

However, struggling to get vz working myself.

You might take a look at https://github.com/lima-vm/alpine-lima

Like nixos-lima it uses shell scripts rather than cloud-init.

[msgilligan]

@NoahBres Have you made any progress? I just was looking at rosetta-builder and didn't realize until today that it used Lima.

Although there is an open issue for rosetta-builder to remove the use of Lima: cpick/nix-rosetta-builder#13 -- but I do agree that Lima is not ideal for rosetta-builder as a dedicated builder VM.

[mindshade]

Hi @msgilligan, just wanted to say thanks for setting this repo up and pulling all the pieces toghether! 👏

I have been fiddling around with vz mode for NixOS but still stuck at the same place as @NoahBres.

[msgilligan]

I'm currently testing PR #10.

I also added PR #11, to make it easier to use nixos.yaml for both QEMU and VZ.

[msgilligan]

PR #10 contains 2 commits:

• 045cb1c -- which has been cherry-picked to master fixes the hang at boot-time
• b9986e2 -- which fixes an issue with the lima-guestagent on VZ, but doesn't work with QEMU

So we need to add --vsock-port 2222 to the lima-guestagent (in lima-init.nix) -- but only if we are running under VZ. Since otherwise the nixos.qcow image works for both VZ and QEMU, the best solution would be a way for the guest to determine at runtime that it is running under VZ and only add --vsock-port 2222 in that case.

[msgilligan]

Update: the following variables are in /mnt/lima-cidata/lima.env:

LIMA_CIDATA_VMTYPE=vz
LIMA_CIDATA_VSOCK_PORT=2222

The first should be used to determine whether to add the --vsock-port option and the second should be used in place of the literal 2222.