lima-vm/lima v2.0.0-alpha.1

on GitHub

Highlights:

• Experimental plug-in subsystem for VM driver infrastructure.
  This will help implementing third-party plugins without modifying the code base of Lima.
  Thanks to GSoC 2025 contributor @unsuman .
• Experimental integration for Model Context Protocol (MCP) (#3744). i.e., Lima can be now used as a sandbox for Gemini, etc. [New in alpha.1]
• Add limactl (start|restart) --progress flag to show the progress of provisioning (#3846, #3915, thanks to @olamilekan000 @norio-nomura)
• Add limactl shell --preserve-env flag to propagate env vars from the host to VM (#3830, thanks to @olamilekan000)

Other notable changes:

• /tmp/lima is no longer mounted by default (#3951)
• SSH port is no longer hard-coded to 60022 for the "default" instance (#3780)
• Forward UDP ports by default (#4054) [New in alpha.1]

Changes

• VM driver infrastructure:

  • Experimental plug-in subsystem for VM driver infrastructure (multiple PRs, thanks to @unsuman)

• MCP:

  • Experimental integration for Model Context Protocol (MCP) (#3744) [New in alpha.1]. Lima now provides MCP tools for reading, writing, and executing local files using a VM sandbox. Known to work with Google Gemini CLI.

• VZ:

  • Support Rosetta AOT Caching with CDI (#3858, thanks to @norio-nomura)
  • Support accelerating SSH using AF_VSOCK (#3979, thanks to @norio-nomura) [New in alpha.1]

• limactl CLI:

  • Add limactl (start|restart) --progress flag to show the progress of provisioning (#3846, #3915, thanks to @olamilekan000 @norio-nomura)
  • Add limactl (create|start|edit) --port-forward flag for static port forwarding (#3699, thanks to @Horiodino).
    Usually not needed, but useful for instances created with --plain.
  • Add limactl (create|start|edit) --ssh-port flag (#3791)
  • Add limactl (create|start|edit) --mount-only flag (#3947).
    Similar to --mount, but overrides the existing mounts. Useful for mounting $(pwd).
  • Add limactl shell --preserve-env flag to propagate env vars from the host to VM (#3830, thanks to @olamilekan000).
    See also LIMA_SHELLENV_ALLOW and LIMA_SHELLENV_BLOCK.
  • Support CLI plugins (#3834, #4009, thanks to @olamilekan000)
  • Add limactl copy --backend=rsync flag as an alternative to scp backend (#3143, thanks to @olamilekan000) [New in alpha.1]
  • Add limactl list--yq and limactl info --yq flags (#3998, thanks to @jandubois) [New in alpha.1]

• YAML:

  • Migrate cpuType to vmOpts.qemu (#3500, thanks to @unsuman)
  • Add yq provision mode (#3892, thanks to @norio-nomura)
  • Prohibit relative paths in YAML (#3950).
    Relative paths were never intended to be supported,
    but they were accidentally allowed due to a regression in v1.1.0.
    The CLI command limactl (create|start|edit) --mount DIR still supports relative paths.

• Default template:

  • Remove /tmp/lima mount (#3951)
  • Stop hardcoding SSH port 60022 (#3780)

• Port forwarding:

  • Support port forwarding in plain mode (#3699, thanks to @Horiodino)
  • Support host sockets in gRPC port forwarder (#4008, thanks to @norio-nomura) [New in alpha.1]
  • Forward UDP ports by default (#4054) [New in alpha.1]
  • Eliminated 3-second delay for detecting ports (#4066 [New in alpha.1]

• Build system:

  • Remove Kconfig and config.mk, in favor of Makefile variables (#3732)

• Templates:

  • debian: update to Debian 13 (#4029, thanks to @unsuman) [New in alpha.1]
  • docker, docker-rootful: Enable containerd image store (#3941, thanks to @norio-nomura)
  • k0s: New template (#3728, thanks to @plandem)

• Project:

  • Invite Ansuman Sahoo (@unsuman) as a Reviewer (#4003, thanks to @jandubois) [New in alpha.1]

Full changes: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/milestone/59?closed=1

Thanks to @Horiodino @afbjorklund @alexandear @ashwat287 @bonifaido @dharsanb @jandubois @muchzill4 @ningmingxiao @norio-nomura @olamilekan000 @plandem @stek29 @unsuman @vishalanarase @zyfy29

Usage

$ limactl create
$ limactl start
...
INFO[0029] READY. Run `lima` to open the shell.

$ lima uname
Linux

The binaries were built automatically on GitHub Actions.
The build log is available for 90 days: https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/actions/runs/17963648712

The sha256sum of the SHA256SUMS file itself is e66aacaa48c5aa91d4d0489e12aa0ecd36aa3cd0df830784b5fde37a96cbd6bc .

Release manager: @AkihiroSuda