MACVZ
This project is inspired by and a rewrite of lima-vm.
The major difference is macvz uses macOS new Virtualization API instead of QEMU for spinning up VM's.
Requirements
- Higher or equal to macOS monterey (12.2)
- Golang
Getting Started
Installation via Homebrew
- Run
brew install mac-vz/tap/macvzto install macvz
Installation via source
- Run
make allto compile and build binary - Run
make installto install the binary to /usr/local
Using macvz as a alternate for Docker Desktop
To start a Docker VM, run the following command
macvz start https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mac-vz/macvz/main/examples/docker.yamlExecute the following command in macOS host to update docker.sock location
export DOCKER_HOST=unix://${HOME}/.macvz/docker/sock/docker.sockThat's it !!
Other macvz commands
To get shell access to a running VM,
macvz shell dockerTo stop a running VM,
macvz stop dockerFeatures
- Ability to start, stop and shell access
- Filesystem mounting using virtfs (See the performance report below)
- Automatic Port forwarding
- Custom DNS Resolution (like host.docker.internal)
Planned
- Support for commands like list, delete, pause, resume
- Support for different linux distros
Performance Summary
Summary of filesystem performance with colima
The following table contains result summary of some different workloads tested against macvz and colima
Summary for IOPS (Input Ouput Per Second)
| Workload | Summary | macvz | colima |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequential Reads | macvz handles 8x higher operations | 620K | 77K |
| Random Reads | macvz handles 3x higher operations | 82K | 25K |
| Random Reads/Writes | macvz handles 3x higher operations | 37K/12K | 14K/4K |
| Sequential writes | macvz performs almost equally | 37K | 38K |
| Random writes | macvz performs almost equally | 22K | 30K |
Summary for Bandwidth (Maximum amount of data transmitted)
| Workload | Summary | macvz | colima |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequential Reads | macvz handles 8x more data | 2500MB | 306MB |
| Random Reads | macvz handles 3x more data | 320MB | 98MB |
| Random Reads/Writes | macvz handles 3x more data | 140MB/50MB | 60MB/20MB |
| Sequential writes | macvz performs almost equally | 145MB | 150MB |
| Random writes | macvz performs almost equally | 90MB | 110MB |
Check out Wiki page Why use virtualization framework for detailed information
Project Status
⚠️ The project is still in early stage development and may introduce breaking changes.
Supporters
