Virtualising ARM64 Linux on an Apple Silicon Mac

Düzenlendi · Kapsam: QEMU, Hypervisor.framework (HVF), EDK2 UEFI and Ubuntu ARM64 cloud-init on macOS Sonoma/Sequoia.

Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2/M3/M4) use ARM64 (AArch64). This allows ARM64 Linux guests to run with hardware virtualisation, avoiding the substantial overhead of x86 emulation.

This guide creates a headless ARM64 Ubuntu VM using open source QEMU, Apple’s Hypervisor.framework (HVF), SSH access and automatic Cloud-Init configuration.

1. Architecture and HVF acceleration

On macOS, QEMU uses Hypervisor.framework through -accel hvf. Guest instructions execute directly on Apple Silicon cores rather than being emulated in software.

Main QEMU options

-accel hvf: enables Apple’s hypervisor API.
-cpu host: exposes host ARM CPU capabilities to the guest.
-M virt,highmem=on,gic-version=3: selects the standard ARM virtual machine model. highmem=on supports memory above 4 GB; gic-version=3 enables the ARMv8 GICv3 interrupt controller.

2. Memory pages: 16 KB on macOS vs 4 KB on Linux

An architectural difference often confuses developers:

Host macOS / Darwin: uses 16 KB memory pages (PAGE_SIZE = 16384).
Standard Ubuntu/Debian ARM64 guest: the kernels discussed here use 4 KB pages (CONFIG_ARM64_4K_PAGES=y).

Why this does not prevent virtualisation

ARMv8-A provides two-stage address translation:

Stage 1 — guest kernel: translates a Guest Virtual Address (GVA) to a Guest Physical Address (GPA), using the guest’s 4 KB granularity.
Stage 2 — HVF hypervisor: translates the GPA to a Host Physical Address (HPA), using the hypervisor’s 16 KB granularity.

The two stages can use different granule sizes. With guest memory correctly aligned to the host’s requirements, standard 4 KB Ubuntu images can run on Apple Silicon without a kernel patch.

3. Firmware: EDK2 ARM64 UEFI

The ARM64 setup does not use a legacy PC BIOS; it requires UEFI.

Homebrew’s QEMU package includes EDK2 firmware:

Read-only code flash: /opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-aarch64-code.fd
Writable NVRAM template: /opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-arm-vars.fd

Make a separate NVRAM copy for each VM so its UEFI boot order and settings persist.

4. Prerequisites and installation

Install QEMU using Homebrew in the macOS terminal:

brew install qemu

5. Guest image and Cloud-Init automation

Instead of working through an interactive installation ISO, use an official Ubuntu cloud image and Cloud-Init, as cloud providers do.

Step 1: Create a working directory and download the image

mkdir -p ~/qemu-linux/cidata && cd ~/qemu-linux
curl -LO https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-arm64.img

Step 2: Create the virtual disk and UEFI NVRAM

# 25 GB boyutunda dinamik qcow2 diski oluştur
qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b noble-server-cloudimg-arm64.img -F qcow2 disk.qcow2 25G

# UEFI değişken şablonunu kopyala
cp /opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-arm-vars.fd efi_vars.fd

Step 3: Configure Cloud-Init

Create a NoCloud ISO to define the ubuntu username, example password sifre123 and sudo access at first boot.

cidata/user-data:

#cloud-config
password: sifre123
chpasswd: { expire: False }
ssh_pwauth: True
users:
  - name: ubuntu
    sudo: ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
    shell: /bin/bash
    lock_passwd: False

cidata/meta-data:

instance-id: qemu-arm64-01
local-hostname: ubuntu-vm

Build the ISO with macOS’s hdiutil:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -default-volume-name cidata -o cloud-init.iso cidata/

6. VM startup script

Save the following command as baslat.sh:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
exec qemu-system-aarch64 \
    -accel hvf \
    -cpu host \
    -M virt,highmem=on,gic-version=3 \
    -m 4G \
    -smp 4 \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,readonly=on,file=/opt/homebrew/share/qemu/edk2-aarch64-code.fd \
    -drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=efi_vars.fd \
    -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=hd0 \
    -drive if=none,id=hd0,file=disk.qcow2,format=qcow2 \
    -device virtio-blk-pci,drive=cloudinit \
    -drive if=none,id=cloudinit,file=cloud-init.iso,format=raw \
    -netdev user,id=net0,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
    -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 \
    -nographic

Options explained

-m 4G -smp 4: allocates 4 GB RAM and four virtual CPUs.
virtio-blk-pci and virtio-net-pci: paravirtualised disk and network devices.
hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22: forwards Mac port 2222 to guest SSH port 22.
-nographic: uses the terminal’s serial console without opening a graphical window.

7. Start the VM and connect over SSH

Make the script executable and run it:

chmod +x baslat.sh
./baslat.sh

UEFI and Linux boot logs appear in the terminal. Cloud-Init should finish configuration after roughly 20 seconds.

Open another Mac terminal and connect over SSH:

ssh -p 2222 ubuntu@localhost

Enter the example password sifre123.

Check the guest kernel and architecture:

uname -a
getconf PAGESIZE

Expected output:

Linux ubuntu-vm 6.8.0-31-generic #31-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC arm64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
4096

To exit QEMU immediately, press Ctrl + A and then x in the serial-console terminal.

Sources and verification environment

This guide was tested and verified on an Apple M2 Max Mac running macOS Sonoma 14.5, Homebrew QEMU 9.0.0 and an Ubuntu 24.04 ARM64 cloud image.