[Question]: what would be needed to run this in Docker / colima / other on macOS?

[tkothe]

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Question

I searched existing issues and was surprised I could not find the question. So my question is: Why does the project not support running in Docker (or equivalent) on macOS and what would be required to make that work?

Thank you!

[kroese]

macOS does not support KVM acceleration, but invented something similar: HVF acceleration. The container uses QEMU, and QEMU supports both KVM and HVF. But the Linux-version of QEMU is compiled without HVF enabled (because it does not exist on Linux normally).

So the first step to make it work would be to use a custom compiled version of QEMU with the HVF flag enabled, so that it can be activated.

The next step would be to pass the HVF device to the container. On Linux you can simply pass /dev/kvm so hopefully macOS has something like /dev/hvf to do the same.

And then it should work. But I have no Apple devices myself, and its a lot of effort, so I dont think it will be done soon.