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Why use macOS virtualization framework ?
The Virtualization framework provides high-level APIs for creating and managing virtual machines (VM) on Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers. The framework supports the Virtual I/O Device (VIRTIO) specification, which defines standard interfaces for many device types, including network, socket, serial port, storage, entropy, and memory-balloon devices.
These high level API's can be used in Objective-C or Swift programming lanugage.
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator. It emulates the machine's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest operating systems.
If your host's (your computer) architecture matches the guest's (QEMU) architecture and is running Mac OS 10.10 or higher, then you could speed up execution to near native speed using this option: -accel hvf (This will make use of Hypervisor low level API for native speed)
The major advantage in using Virtualization.Framework is the support for Virtio devices. QEMU support Virtio devices for other OS but not for macOS.
With support for virtio devices mac Virtualization framework provides out of the box support for devices like virtiofs, vsock.
The Shared filesystem plays a major role in performance of linux subsystems.
The idea of shared filesystem is to mont the host folders inside Virtual Machines.
The below table contains comparison of mounted filesystem performance of macvz vs lima.
- Macvz uses virtiofs device supported in Virtualization.Framework
- Colima uses reversesshfs
- Lima 9P uses 9p filesystem (This is in early stage)
Github repository used for testing with filesystem performance with various workloads - https://github.com/rhvgoyal/virtiofs-tests
| Name | Workload | Macvz (BW) | Macvz (IOPS) | Colima (BW) | Colima (IOPS) | Lima 9p (BW) | Lima 9p (IOPS) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dax-test | seqread-psync | ✔️ 30.3mb | ✔️ 7774 | 4687kb | 1171 | 21.9mb | 5614 |
| dax-test | seqread-psync-multi | ✔️ 75.5mb | ✔️ 18.8k | 14.3mb | 3677 | 30.3mb | 7777 |
| dax-test | seqread-mmap | ✔️ 797.1mb | ✔️ 199.2k | 97.2mb | 24.3k | 21.6mb | 5537 |
| dax-test | seqread-mmap-multi | ✔️ 1495.1mb | ✔️ 373.7k | 134.0mb | 33.5k | 29.3mb | 7508 |
| dax-test | seqread-libaio | ✔️ 30.1mb | ✔️ 7724 | 28.3mb | 7261 | 19.3mb | 4944 |
| dax-test | seqread-libaio-multi | ✔️ 76.6mb | ✔️ 19.1k | 28.1mb | 7207 | 28.3mb | 7250 |
| dax-test | randread-psync | ✔️ 32.7mb | ✔️ 8389 | 5087kb | 1271 | 18.3mb | 4703 |
| dax-test | randread-psync-multi | ✔️ 88.6mb | ✔️ 22.1k | 16.0mb | 4106 | 30.3mb | 7768 |
| dax-test | randread-mmap | ✔️ 31.8mb | ✔️ 8159 | 4967kb | 1241 | 19.0mb | 4884 |
| dax-test | randread-mmap-multi | ✔️ 87.5mb | ✔️ 21.8k | 15.4mb | 3951 | 30.2mb | 7732 |
| dax-test | randread-libaio | 27.2mb | 6972 | ✔️ 28.0mb | ✔️ 7175 | 13.6mb | 3493 |
| dax-test | randread-libaio-multi | ✔️ 59.0mb | ✔️ 14.7k | 28.8mb | 7390 | 26.9mb | 6904 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-psync | ✔️ 14.3mb | ✔️ 3662 | 13.5mb | 3464 | 21.2mb | 5449 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-psync-multi | 38.1mb | 9757 | ✔️ 40.5mb | ✔️ 10.1k | 30.2mb | 7732 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-mmap | ✔️ 10.7mb | ✔️ 2751 | 5424kb | 1355 | 0kb | 0 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-mmap-multi | ✔️ 30.2mb | ✔️ 7756 | 12.1mb | 3118 | 0kb | 0 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-libaio | 14.1mb | 3621 | ✔️ 39.8mb | ✔️ 10200 | 20.2mb | 5183 |
| dax-test | seqwrite-libaio-multi | 36.3mb | 9310 | ✔️ 39.1mb | ✔️ 10034 | 30.1mb | 7726 |
| dax-test | randwrite-psync | 9970kb | 2492 | ✔️ 14.2mb | ✔️ 3639 | 10.9mb | 2798 |
| dax-test | randwrite-psync-multi | 20.2mb | 5186 | ✔️ 34.7mb | ✔️ 8889 | 24.8mb | 6351 |
| dax-test | randwrite-mmap | ✔️ 7883kb | ✔️ 1970 | 2426kb | 606 | 0kb | 0 |
| dax-test | randwrite-mmap-multi | ✔️ 21.1mb | ✔️ 5420 | 7646kb | 1911 | 0kb | 0 |
| dax-test | randwrite-libaio | 9828kb | 2456 | ✔️ 19.7mb | ✔️ 5058 | 8607kb | 2151 |
| dax-test | randwrite-libaio-multi | 20.2mb | 5180 | ✔️ 39.8mb | ✔️ 10192 | 24.7mb | 6331 |
| dax-test | randrw-psync | ✔️ 15.7mb/5371kb | ✔️ 4034/1342 | 3672kb/1217kb | 917/304 | 12.2mb/4164kb | 3129/1040 |
| dax-test | randrw-psync-multi | ✔️ 39.9mb/13.3mb | ✔️ 10234/3428 | 12.0mb/4181kb | 3095/1045 | 21.6mb/7468kb | 5547/1866 |
| dax-test | randrw-mmap | ✔️ 9616kb/3208kb | ✔️ 2403/801 | 2703kb/896kb | 675/223 | 0kb/0kb | 0/0 |
| dax-test | randrw-mmap-multi | ✔️ 24.1mb/8312kb | ✔️ 6187/2077 | 9129kb/3095kb | 2282/773 | 0kb/0kb | 0/0 |
| dax-test | randrw-libaio | ✔️ 16.4mb/5603kb | ✔️ 4205/1400 | 11.1mb/3799kb | 2847/949 | 13.4mb/4563kb | 3435/1140 |
| dax-test | randrw-libaio-multi | ✔️ 42.5mb/14.2mb | ✔️ 10.6k/3639 | 19.1mb/6594kb | 4892/1648 | 19.9mb/6884kb | 5108/1720 |
As you could see, macvz (virtiofs) outperforms other filesystem in almost all cases.
The current experimental version of Docker desktop also make use of Virtualization framework like macvz.