DarwinCracker

Build

Run the included Makefile using make. The default target will build a release version.

make

Install

sudo make install

Usage

If we run DarwinCraker without any options it will show the usage:

DarwinCracker

We can show some informations using the info verb:

DarwinCracker info

We can confirm that our virtual machine configuration is correct with:

DarwinCracker print SomeVirtualMachineBundle.machine

Finally we can run our virtual machine with:

DarwinCracker run SomeVirtualMachineBundle.machine

To view any produced log messages, we can run:

log stream --level debug --predicate 'subsystem == "cc.colorto.DarwinCracker"'

How-to guides and examples

Create your first virtual machine

Here we will create a virtual machine based on the Ubuntu 21.04 cloud image. The output will be a directory named Ubuntu.machine (can be adapted to our own preferences) which will contain the virtual machine configuration. The virtual machine configuration contains a file called Machine.plist which describes the virtual hardware associated with this machine and the necessary files like Kernel and RAM disk as well as optional files like a virtual hard disk.

Prepare a directory which will be our virtual machine bundle:

mkdir Ubuntu.machine

Download the kernel and ram disk into our bundle (from above):

curl -Lo Ubuntu.machine/vmlinuz https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/hirsute/release/unpacked/ubuntu-21.04-server-cloudimg-amd64-vmlinuz-generic
curl -Lo Ubuntu.machine/initrd https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/hirsute/release/unpacked/ubuntu-21.04-server-cloudimg-amd64-initrd-generic

Create the virtual machine configuration (Plist format):

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :cpuCount integer 2" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :memorySize integer 2048" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:kernel string vmlinuz" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:initrd string initrd" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:cmdline string 'console=hvc0'" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist

We can confirm the Machine.plist file is correct with the following command:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" Ubuntu.machine/Machine.plist

Create a machine based based on Ubuntu Server 20.04 ISO and install it

Prepare a directory for our virtual machine:

VM=~/Machines/UbuntuJammy.machine
mkdir -p $VM

Download the Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS ISO and store it inside the $VM directory.

Extract kernel and ram disk from the ISO

mkdir -p /tmp/ubuntu
hdiutil attach -nomount $VM/ubuntu-22.04-live-server-amd64.iso
sudo mount -t cd9660 /dev/disk$N /tmp/ubuntu
cp /tmp/ubuntu/xx/{kernel,initrd} $VM
sudo umount /tmp/ubuntu
hdiutil detach /dev/disk$N

Create an empty disk for the installation (in this example we create a 40 GB disk):
```
dd if=/dev/zero of=$VM/disk0.raw bs=1G count=40
```

Configure the machine:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :cpuCount integer 2" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :memorySize integer 4096" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:kernel string vmlinuz" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:initrd string initrd" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :boot:cmdline string 'console=hvc0'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices array" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:0:deviceIdentifier string 'disk0'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:0:path string 'disk0.raw'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:0:readOnly bool 'false'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:1:deviceIdentifier string 'iso'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:1:path string 'ubuntu-22.04-live-server-amd64.iso'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :storageDevices:1:readOnly bool 'true'" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :networkDevices array" $VM/Machine.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :networkDevices:0:type string 'NAT'" $VM/Machine.plist

Confirm the configuration is correct:
```
DarwinCracker print $VM
```
Run the virtual machine:
```
DarwinCracker run $VM
```
After booting we should see the terminal based installation menu. We can now install the machine into our newly created disk.
After the installation is completed, we can shutdown the machine and remove the installer ISO.
```
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :storageDevices:1" $VM/Machine.plist
```

Run a virtual machine as a daemon

We can have a virtual machine running in the background using a launch agent:

Use some variables for easy adjustments:

VM_LABEL=org.example.UbuntuMachine
VM_AGENT_PLIST=${HOME}/Library/LaunchAgents/${VM_LABEL}.plist

Create a launch agents file:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :Label string ${VM_LABEL}" "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :RunAtLoad bool true" "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :ProgramArguments:0 string /bin/sh" "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :ProgramArguments:1 string -c" "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}"
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add :ProgramArguments:2 string "DarwinCracker run $HOME/Ubuntu.machine"' "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}

Install, enable and start the virtual machine agent:

launchctl bootstrap "gui/$(id -u)" "${VM_AGENT_PLIST}"
launchctl enable "gui/$(id -u)/${VM_LABEL}"
launchctl print "gui/$(id -u)/${VM_LABEL}"
launchctl kickstart -kp "gui/$(id -u)/${VM_LABEL}"

kiron1 / darwincracker

DarwinCracker

Build

Install

Usage

How-to guides and examples

Create your first virtual machine

Create a machine based based on Ubuntu Server 20.04 ISO and install it

Run a virtual machine as a daemon

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