Which virtualisation technology can I use on ARM (aarch64) processors
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Many users are getting the new Mac Laptop using ARM-based processors (M1 Pro & M1 Max). As a result, some virtualization adaptations need to be made by students to be able to install and use virtual machines.
I give here some of my findings related to Hypervisors, Emulators, Dockers, and ARM-based Windows VM.
Traditional Hypervisors
VMware proposes a Hypervisor that is allowed to install and create virtual machines on ARM-based processors. You can download the tool from here https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Fusion-for-Apple-Silicon-Tech/ct-p/3022
Some Linux distributions already have ARM-compatible OSs, such as Ubuntu. You can find here the ARM-based distribution for Ubuntu that I tested using the VMware tool.
Ubuntu Server: https://ubuntu.com/download/server/arm
Ubuntu Desktop 64-bit ARM (ARMv8/AArch64) desktop image
Fedora has also a distribution for ARM based systems https://arm.fedoraproject.org
I'm not sure about Kali & other distributions, please let me know if you have tested them.
Docker
Docker Desktop is also available for ARM based systems. You can download it using this link https://docs.docker.com/desktop/mac/apple-silicon/
You can later deploy any type of Linux container: Alpine, Kali, Ubuntu, etc..
What about Windows?
Windows is not yet available for ARM-based systems, but it is possible to use Parallel Hypervisor to create an ARM-based Windows VM. However, Parallel is not free. There is another Hypervisor called UTM (https://mac.getutm.app). This Hypervisor allows us to emulate (not virtualize) Windows. It is free but very slow because of the emulation.
- There is another solution that consists of using a non stable version of Windows 11 that is ARM-based. We need to register first in the Windows insider program of Microsoft and then download ARM based Windows 11 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewARM64?lc=1033) . It is important then to convert the VHDX into VMDK (I use qemu-img on Linux to do that) and then create an ARM based machine on VMware. However, we will not have an internet connection on the Windows VM. To solve this issue, we need to activate the debug mode by running the commands in the cmd.exe of Windows 11 (administrator mode) :
- bcdedit /debug on
- bcdedit /dbgsettings net hostip: youMACIP port:54444
However, this solution should be used only for experimental works, not for production systems.
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