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Linux guests

Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora from the catalog, your own arm64 ISO, shared folders

Installing

Create a Linux VM from the catalog (Ubuntu Server, Debian, Fedora Server; arm64 ISOs, checked against a pinned SHA-256 after download) or from your own ISO. VMPane refuses ISOs without an arm64 UEFI loader (EFI/BOOT/BOOTAA64.EFI): x86_64 images cannot boot on Apple silicon.

The ISO is attached as a USB drive. When the installer reboots, the installed system starts; the ISO stays attached until the VM next stops, then VMPane removes it from the VM's settings.

Shared folders

Every shared folder of a VM appears under one virtiofs tag, vmpane-shares, one directory per share:

Terminal
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/vmpane
sudo mount -t virtiofs vmpane-shares /mnt/vmpane
ls /mnt/vmpane        # one directory per shared folder, by its name

To mount at boot, add to /etc/fstab:

Code
vmpane-shares  /mnt/vmpane  virtiofs  rw,nofail  0  0

A share added while the VM runs appears in the mounted directory without remounting, if the VM started with at least one share; otherwise it appears after the next start.

Rosetta (x86_64 Linux programs)

Choose Rosetta (run x86-64 Linux programs) when you create the VM (New VM › Integrations; VMPane asks macOS to install Rosetta if needed). Then, in the guest:

Terminal
sudo mkdir -p /media/rosetta
sudo mount -t virtiofs rosetta /media/rosetta
sudo /usr/sbin/update-binfmts --install rosetta /media/rosetta/rosetta \
    --magic "\x7fELF\x02\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x02\x00\x3e\x00" \
    --mask "\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfe\xfe\x00\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfe\xff\xff\xff" \
    --credentials yes --preserve no --fix-binary yes

update-binfmts comes with the binfmt-support package (Debian, Ubuntu). To mount at boot, add to /etc/fstab:

Code
rosetta  /media/rosetta  virtiofs  ro,nofail  0  0

The binfmt registration follows Apple's documentation; VMPane's tests check that the rosetta share mounts and holds the Rosetta binary.

Nested virtualization

Planned. VMs support nested virtualization on a Mac with an M3 chip or later (the guest then has /dev/kvm, for KVM, QEMU with acceleration, or Firecracker inside the VM), but the app has no switch for it yet.

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