Guest OS on Lima

Linux

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Linux is the default guest operating system.

macOS

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

⚡ Requirement	Lima >= 2.1, macOS (same or newer than the guest OS), ARM

Running macOS guests is experimentally supported since Lima v2.1.

limactl start template:macos

To specify the macOS version explicitly:

limactl start template:macos-27

limactl start template:homebrew-macos

The user password is randomly generated and stored in the ~/password file in the VM. Consider changing it after the first login.

Windows

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

⚡ Requirement	Lima >= 2.2, QEMU, swtpm

Running Windows guests is experimentally supported since Lima v2.2.

limactl start template:windows

limactl start template:windows-2025

The user password is randomly generated and stored in the %USERPROFILE%\password.txt file in the VM. Consider changing it after the first login.

FreeBSD

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

⚡ Requirement	Lima >= 2.1

Running FreeBSD guests is experimentally supported since Lima v2.1.

limactl start template:freebsd-15

limactl start template:experimental/freebsd-16

Prerequisites:

QEMU
xorriso (on non-macOS hosts)

Difference from Linux guests

Several features are not implemented yet. See Caveats below.

Caveats

No support for automatic port forwarding. Use ssh -L to manually set up port forwarding.
No support for installing custom caCerts
And more

FreeBSD prior to 15.1

No support for mounting host directories. Use limactl cp or limactl shell --sync to share files with the host.

Plain mode

The guest agent, containerd, and automatic port forwarding are not available on FreeBSD guests regardless of the mode, so plain mode additionally disables only the host directory mounts (on FreeBSD 15.1 and later).

Guest OS on Lima

Linux

See also

macOS

Windows

FreeBSD

Difference from Linux guests

Caveats

FreeBSD prior to 15.1

Plain mode