HanaLima: Native macOS GUI for Lima with rootless NAT, host-only and bridged networks

[izawa]

Hi everyone! Thanks to @TheLimaProject for the invitation on X.

I'd like to share HanaLima, an unofficial native macOS (SwiftUI) GUI for Lima. It's a one-person hobby project, so please go easy on it 🙂

• Site: https://izawa.github.io/HanaLima/
• Repo: https://github.com/izawa/HanaLima

What it does

Create and run VMs, size CPUs/memory/disks, edit settings in a form or as raw lima.yaml, open an in-app console, manage disks and shares, and set up NAT, host-only and bridged networks with fixed IPs — all without root, sudoers or socket_vmnet. The UI is in English and Japanese.

How it works with Lima

Zero patches to Lima: HanaLima just drives limactl. It reads limactl list --format json and limactl watch --json, and turns form edits into limactl edit --set expressions for only the fields you touched, so Lima's defaults, unknown keys and comments survive and Lima validates every change.

The networking part, which may interest Lima developers

• On macOS 26, vmnet_network lets an ordinary user create a NAT or host-only network with a chosen subnet and DHCP reservations, as long as the binary is signed with com.apple.security.virtualization.
• With the same entitlement, vmnet_start_interface in VMNET_BRIDGED_MODE also starts fine as a non-root user — so classic bridged mode (wired or Wi-Fi) works without socket_vmnet running as root.
• A small helper (hanalima-netd) speaks socket_vmnet's wire protocol (QEMU stream framing: 4-byte big-endian length + frame) on one side and vmnet on the other, so Lima connects through its existing networks: - socket: PATH config. Works for both VZ and QEMU VMs.
• Each network is a per-user LaunchAgent with launchd socket activation, so networks keep working after you quit the app and run limactl start from a shell.
• Fixed IPs: macOS's bootpd prefers the DHCP client identifier (option 61) over the MAC, and Linux guests send a DUID, so vmnet's MAC-based reservations never matched. The helper strips option 61 only for MACs that have a reservation, and reservations work.

Other bits

• Snapshots for VZ VMs via APFS clonefile (instant, space only for what changes), and new VMs from snapshots.
• Move a VM's disk to an external drive while keeping it sparse (copyfile with COPYFILE_DATA_SPARSE), and back.
• VM copies that get their own disk, drop hand-set MACs, and record their parent.
• An option to skip sharing your home folder for VMs running things you don't fully trust (e.g. AI coding agents).

Status

v0.5.0, MIT. Requires macOS 26+ and Lima 2.2+. No signed release yet — it builds and installs with one script (scripts/make-app.sh --install --open). Design notes are in the repo under docs/.

Feedback, bug reports and ideas are very welcome. And thank you to the Lima maintainers — none of this would exist without limactl and its JSON interfaces.