MacVisor Beta

Changelog

MacVisor beta release notes.

MacVisor is beta software. Features and formats can change before GA; keep an independent VM backup and review destructive confirmations carefully.

Notes and limitations:

  • MacVisor is mainly developed and tested for single-user Apple-Silicon Macs.
  • MacVisor is specially designed for hosted Mac minis and Mac Studios.
  • Requires macOS 27. The guest agent supports macOS 14 and later inside a VM.
  • During the beta, suspended VMs and live snapshots are a convenience for the build they were made on: shut VMs down before updating MacVisor.

27.0.0 (public beta1, beta2)

The public betas, for macOS 27 on Apple Silicon, in brief it ships:

  • Linux and macOS guests on Apple's Virtualization framework, each VM in its own process, owned by a background service that keeps VMs running when the app is closed.
  • Cloud images: a bundled catalogue of Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Oracle Linux, CentOS Stream, openSUSE Leap, and Alpine. cloud-init sets up your account, SSH keys, and the guest agent, plus a container runtime (containerd, Docker, Podman, or k3s) and a read-only share of your home folder when you ask for them; every VM is a linked clone of its template.
  • macOS guests from Apple's installers (macOS 27, 26, 15, 14, or the newest this Mac supports). macOS 27 guests skip Setup Assistant, sign in, and install the guest agent themselves.
  • Snapshots (disk-only and live), templates, linked and full clones, export and import (imported bundles are made safe to run), and ASIF disks that resize and convert in place.
  • Networking: NAT, bridging, named shared and host-only networks with DHCP, DNS, NAT, reservations and port forwards, VLAN interfaces, a firewall the background service enforces whether or not the app is open, <vm>.mvz and <vm>.macvisor names, and automatic port forwards.
  • Guest tools: mvz shell and exec over the agent, a clipboard shared both ways, one way, or not at all per VM, file transfer, port tunnels, live guest information, and Docker contexts and kubeconfigs on the Mac.
  • The mvz CLI (also installed as macvisor) for everything the app does, with JSON output, shell completion, and documented exit codes.
  • An always-on host: VMs that start at login, Open at Login for the app, headless VMs, menu-bar control, a dashboard of host resources and tasks, and a choice of shutting down (the default) or suspending running VMs when the Mac logs out or restarts.
  • Setup and licensing: a first-run assistant for the background service, network helper, and Local Network consent; a free 30-day trial key; one-time MacVisor 27 licenses (Professional and Business) and annual Enterprise licenses through Polar. The background service keeps the license, re-checks it weekly with a 30-day offline allowance whether or not the app is open, and mvz license activates and manages it on a Mac you only reach over SSH.
  • Updates through Sparkle, signed and verified; running VMs are not interrupted, and MacVisor asks first when VMs are suspended.

Thanks and Credits

  • Sparkle Project for providing an update framework for MacVisor
  • Apple DTS/VZ team for reviewing and granting us the private networking and usb-accessory entitlement