Quickstart: create your first VM

In this quickstart, you create a macOS template, clone a VM from it, run commands inside the guest, copy a file into it, and then remove everything you created.

Before you begin

Install Pomme, and confirm that pomme --version works.
Make sure that your login Keychain is unlocked.
Make sure that the host has internet access and enough free disk space for a restore image of about 20 GB plus the VM disks that you create.

Create a template

Restoring a macOS image is the slowest part of creating a VM. A template does that work once so that later VMs can clone it instead of restoring again.

To create a template from the latest signed macOS version, run the following command:

pomme template create base --latest --disk-size 40GB

Pomme downloads the restore image, if it isn’t already cached, and restores it into the template. The restore itself takes about four minutes for a 20 GB image, plus the time to download the image.

Every VM that you clone from this template gets a 40 GB disk.

Create a VM from the template

To clone a VM named dev from the template, run the following command:

pomme create dev --from-template base --memory 4GB

Pomme clones the template’s disk, installs and verifies the Pomme guest agent, and leaves the VM running in normal macOS. Pomme records each creation step in a journal. If creation is interrupted, you can continue it with pomme create dev --resume.

To check the VM’s state, run the following command:

pomme status dev

Run a command in the guest

To run a program in the guest and print its output, use pomme exec. Put the program and its arguments after --:

pomme exec dev -- /usr/bin/sw_vers

The output is the guest’s macOS version:

ProductName:    macOS
ProductVersion:    26.6.2
BuildVersion:    25G83

Your version and build depend on the restore image that you installed.

Open a shell in the guest

To open an interactive shell in the guest, run the following command:

pomme shell dev

The shell runs as root by default. To leave the shell, type exit. To detach and leave the shell running, type ~. at the start of a line. For more about detached shells, see Use durable terminal sessions.

Copy a file into the guest

To copy a file from the host into the guest and read it back, follow these steps:

Create a file on the host:
Terminal window
```
echo "Hello from the host" > hello.txt
```
Copy the file into the guest’s /tmp directory:
Terminal window
```
pomme cp hello.txt dev:/tmp/hello.txt
```
Read the file from the guest:
Terminal window
```
pomme cat dev:/tmp/hello.txt
```
The output is the file’s contents:
```
Hello from the host
```

Clean up

To avoid using host disk space and memory, remove the resources that you created in this quickstart.

Stop the VM:
Terminal window
```
pomme stop dev
```
Pomme asks the guest to shut down and waits for it. If the guest doesn’t shut down in time, Pomme powers it off and says so.
Delete the VM:
Terminal window
```
pomme delete dev
```
Pomme asks you to confirm the deletion.
Optional: if you don’t plan to create more VMs from the template, delete it:
Terminal window
```
pomme template delete base
```
Delete the local test file:
Terminal window
```
rm hello.txt
```