Creating VMs with Anka.app

Create VMs using the Anka desktop application instead of anka create
CLI creation is recommended. anka create installs macOS, creates user anka / password admin, disables SIP, and enables VNC automatically. The GUI path requires manual setup. See Creating VMs.

Steps

  1. Click Create new VM.
  2. Leave the installer blank and click Options for non-default values.
A blank installer targets the latest macOS from Apple’s CDN (updates.cdn-apple.com). Use your own .ipsw with the CLI if you need a specific version.

installer with pkg

  1. Wait for creation to finish. The VM appears in the sidebar.

ui with vm in the sidebar list

Post-creation setup (required)

The GUI does not run the same automation as anka create.

  1. Start the VM with anka start -uv to open the Anka Viewer and mount addons. Do not use -uv in scripts; it is for interactive sessions only.

    • anka view only works after start if you used -v.
    • ARM: sudo anka view as a non-root user is not supported yet. Enable VNC for VMs started with sudo.

  2. In the viewer, finish macOS installation and install the addons package from the disk mounted with -u.

  3. Reboot the VM.

mounted addons

For addons and autologin to work, create user anka with password admin, or configure autologin manually for your user.

SIP is enabled for GUI-created VMs only (anka create disables it automatically).

With SIP on, commands can hang on permission dialogs, and syspolicyd scans processes and uses extra CPU and RAM.

Start recovery mode:

ANKA_START_MODE=2 anka start my-ci-vm

recovery-mode

In Recovery, open Terminal and run csrutil disable. Stop the VM. SIP is off on the next boot.

What’s next