Quick start¶
One command downloads the published disk, imports it into Tart, stages your account, and boots the VM:
The first run fetches a ~2.9 GiB archive and expands it into a 21 GiB disk under ~/.cache/bluefin-vm, so it takes a
few minutes. Later runs boot the VM you already have, in about the time it takes to boot a desktop.
The VM runs detached (a window will open displaying the guest greeter) with its console log in
$TMPDIR/tart-Bluefin.log.
The following sections describe default provisioning. The account, share, and resources can be customised before the first boot, which is when they take effect.
Logging in¶
First boot creates an account named after your macOS user, puts it in wheel, installs your ssh public key, and sets
the login password to the username. That password is a convention rather than a secret — it exists so the greeter, the
lock screen, sudo, and polkit prompts work. Set one of your own inside the VM:
ssh works from first boot with the key that was installed:
The ARP resolver is worth the extra flag because tart's default DHCP-lease lookup returns nothing on recent macOS.
The shared directory¶
~/bluefin-share on the host arrives in the guest at /var/mnt/shared/bluefin-share, with ~/Shared as a symlink to
it. It lives on the host, so it is the place for anything that should outlive the VM.
Stopping and starting¶
Shut down from the desktop, or:
Running bluefin-vm up again boots the same VM; it never destroys one. To start over from a fresh disk, losing
everything inside the guest, use bluefin-vm up --replace or create a new profile.