UTM 5.0.8: Safe VM shutdown if the host controller crashes

[billwalster]

Hello UTM maintainers,

We are evaluating UTM 5.0.8 on an Intel Mac running macOS Sequoia 15.7.9, with a small Linux virtual machine for an isolated scientific research workflow.

Before installing or running the VM, we need to resolve one specific process-safety question.

Does UTM provide, or recommend, a supported host-side supervision mechanism that:

1. Prevents VM execution from continuing indefinitely if the controlling process crashes or is terminated before, during, or after VM startup;
2. Ensures bounded shutdown of the VM and its QEMU/backend processes;
3. Reliably identifies the processes belonging to the VM and verifies that they have terminated?

We know that UTM provides normal shutdown controls and the utmctl command-line interface. However, those controls alone do not establish what happens when the controller terminates unexpectedly.

Our specific questions are:

• Does UTM already provide these guarantees?
• Is there a recommended external supervisor using supported macOS facilities?
• If neither exists, can you confirm that this failure-containment behavior is not currently supported?

We are not asking for custom development or assistance troubleshooting an installed VM. We need an authoritative feasibility clarification before proceeding.

A direct answer, including a link to relevant documentation if available, would be very helpful.

Thank you.