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Anka Virtualization 3.1.0 (apple/arm64)

We are very excited to announce Anka Virtualization 3.1. In this version, you’re going to find several important features that all of our users will benefit from. Here is a summary:

  1. MacOS installation through the anka create command is now automated.
    • SIP is now disabled by default inside of the VM.
    • VNC is now enabled by default inside of the VM.
  2. The anka create command will now produce stopped state VMs. (suspending is not supported by Apple yet)
  3. Shorter anka modify and port-forwarding command.
  4. ANKA_LOG_LEVEL="debug" is available as a replacement for anka --debug.
  5. Support for the Anka Build Cloud’s UAKs when interacting with the registry commands.
  6. Ability to resize the VM’s disk.
  7. Targeting of specific macOS versions with anka create -a

MacOS installation through the anka create command is now automated

Anka 3.0.x began Anka’s support for Apple Silicon / M1 / ARM virtualization. However, it was significantly different from the Anka 2/Intel version which produced a VM, using anka create, with macOS installed, the user set up, and SIP disabled. Users had to manually install macOS and perform any other necessary steps before their VM was functional.

Starting in Anka 3.1, we’re the first to solve this problem by automating the macOS installation, setup, and disabling of SIP. We even automatically enable VNC so users can work around the limitations in Anka View (doesn’t work under sudo). We’re excited about this release and look forward to it improving your production environments running Apple Silicon VMs.

Shortened anka-modify and port-forwarding command

We do not recommend setting --host-port, as it will cause collisions if two VMs attempt to use the same port. If no --host-port is specified, we will dynamically assign them starting from 10000 and incrementing (10001, 10002, etc) depending on if there are other VMs running and consuming ports from the range already.
❯ anka modify 12.6 port --help
usage: port [options] name [rule]

   Add port forwarding rule

arguments:
  name                     Rule name
  rule                     Port forwarding rule: guest-port[:host-ip][:host-port]

options:
  -g,--guest-port <val>    The port inside of the VM that the host-port connects to
  -p,--host-port <val>     The host port to listen on (assigns dynamically if not specified)
  -l,--host-ip <val>       Listen address (defaults to any)
  -d,--delete              Delete the rule
  --set-name <val>         Rename the rule

❯ anka modify 12.6 port vnc 5900
❯ anka modify 12.6 port ssh 22:0.0.0.0

❯ anka start 12.6

❯ anka show 12.6 network
. . .
port_forwarding_rules:
+------+----------+------------+-----------+
| name | protocol | guest_port | host_port |
+------+----------+------------+-----------+
| ssh | tcp      | 22         | 10000     |
| vnc | tcp      | 5900       | 10001     |
+------+----------+------------+-----------+

❯ ssh anka@localhost -p 10000
(anka@localhost) Password:
Last login: Fri Oct 14 06:37:54 2022
anka@Ankas-Virtual-Machine ~ %

Support for the Anka Build Cloud’s UAKs when interacting with the registry commands

Read more about the Anka Build Cloud Advanced User Access Key feature.

> anka registry --help
usage: registry [options] <command>

   Configure and control template registries

options:
  -r,--remote <val>        Sets an alternate registry
  --insecure               Skip TLS verification
  --cert <val>             Path to a client certificate (if user authentication is configured)
  --key <val>              Path to private key if the client certificate doesn't contain one
  --cacert <val>           Use custom CA certificates location (default is /etc/ssl/certs)
  --api-key-id <val>       UAK/TAP identity
  --api-key <val>          UAK/TAP key in PEM format (path or string)

commands:
  list-repos               List registries configured
  add                      Add a registry
  set                      Set default registry
  remove                   Remove a registry from the configuration
  list                     List templates in registry (see anka-push/pull commands)
  show                     Show a template's properties
  revert                   Delete a template or tag

Ability to resize the VM’s disk

❯ anka show 12.6 disk size
128GiB

❯ anka modify 12.6 disk -s 200G

❯ anka run 12.6 bash -c "df -h"
Filesystem       Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk2s1s1  123Gi   14Gi  106Gi    12%  502068 1106561040    0%   /

❯ anka run 12.6 bash -c "diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0"
Started APFS operation
Aligning grow delta to 77,309,411,328 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 208,855,367,680 bytes
Determined the maximum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 208,855,370,752 bytes
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk2
The specific APFS Physical Store being resized is disk0s2
Verifying storage system
Using live mode
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x -l /dev/disk0s2
Checking the container superblock
. . .
Verifying volume object map space
The volume /dev/rdisk2s6 appears to be OK
Verifying allocated space
The container /dev/disk0s2 appears to be OK
Storage system check exit code is 0
Growing APFS Physical Store disk0s2 from 131,545,956,352 to 208,855,367,680 bytes
Modifying partition map
Growing APFS data structures
Finished APFS operation

❯ anka run 12.6 bash -c "df -h"
Filesystem       Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused  Mounted on
/dev/disk2s1s1  195Gi   14Gi  177Gi     8%  502068 1860793720    0%   /

Targeting of specific macOS versions with anka create -a

❯ anka create --list
+---------+--------+
| version | build  |
+---------+--------+
| 12.6    | 21G115 |
+---------+--------+

❯ anka create -a 12.6 12.6-arm64
 14% [||||||||                                                    ] 10:02 ETA

❯ anka create -a latest 12.6-arm64