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docs: update config/multi-arch #4183

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48 changes: 33 additions & 15 deletions website/content/en/docs/config/multi-arch.md
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Expand Up @@ -10,24 +10,42 @@ Lima supports several modes for running Intel-on-ARM and ARM-on-Intel:

## [Slow mode: Intel VM on ARM Host / ARM VM on Intel Host](#slow-mode)

Lima can run a VM with a foreign architecture, just by specifying `arch` in the YAML.
| ⚡ Requirement | QEMU, lima-additional-guestagents |
|---------------|-----------------------------------|

Lima can run a VM with a foreign architecture, using [QEMU](./vmtype/qemu.md).

For [port forwarding](./port.md), the [`lima-additional-guestagents](../installation/) package has to be installed on the host.

An example configuration:
{{< tabpane text=true >}}
{{% tab header="CLI" %}}
```bash
limactl start --vm-type=qemu --arch=x86_64 --plain
```

See the YAML tab for the explanation of the corresponding CLI flags.
{{% /tab %}}
{{% tab header="YAML" %}}
```yaml
# Starting with Lima v2.0, `vmType` has to be expclitly set to "qemu" on non-Linux hosts.
vmType: "qemu"

# Supported architectures:
# Non-experimental: aarch64, x86_64
# Experimental: armv7l, ppc64le, riscv64, s390x
#
# containerd is not automatically installed for the experimental architectures.
arch: "x86_64"
# arch: "aarch64"

images:
- location: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/jammy/current/jammy-server-cloudimg-amd64.img"
arch: "x86_64"
- location: "https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/jammy/current/jammy-server-cloudimg-arm64.img"
arch: "aarch64"

# Disable mounts and containerd, otherwise booting up may time out if the host is slow
mounts: []
containerd:
system: false
user: false

# A slow host may need `plain` to disable mounts, port forwards, and containerd, so as to avoid timeout.
plain: true

base:
- template://_images/ubuntu
```
{{% /tab %}}
{{< /tabpane >}}

Running a VM with a foreign architecture is extremely slow.
Consider using [Fast mode](#fast-mode) or [Fast mode 2](#fast-mode-2) whenever possible.
Expand All @@ -40,7 +58,7 @@ QEMU User Mode Emulation is significantly faster than QEMU System Mode Emulation
Set up:
```bash
lima sudo systemctl start containerd
lima sudo nerdctl run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt:qemu-v7.0.0-28@sha256:66e11bea77a5ea9d6f0fe79b57cd2b189b5d15b93a2bdb925be22949232e4e55 --install all
lima sudo nerdctl run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt:qemu-v10.0.4-56@sha256:30cc9a4d03765acac9be2ed0afc23af1ad018aed2c28ea4be8c2eb9afe03fbd1 --install all
```

Run containers:
Expand Down