Mac Developer Onboarding: Documenting BPF/BPF+Lima Limitations and VM Workarounds (related to #375)
#1,465 opened on Aug 3, 2025
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Description
Hey team! As part of good first issue #375 on improving developer docs for testing Kmesh, I wanted to flag a major roadblock for users developing on macOS. What I found: • Mac users (including myself) trying to run Kmesh in a Lima VM hit a wall with BPF support. • While Lima can run basic Go tests, as soon as you attempt anything BPF-related (which is essential for real Kmesh dev), it consistently fails or kernel panics. • I spent several hours on this, and retried on different versions—same outcome. What works much better: 1. Dual-booting into Ubuntu: • Everything just works. • Best performance and reliability. 2. Using UTM to run an Ubuntu VM (ARM64 or x86_64): • Slightly slower than dual-boot, but almost all Kmesh features (including BPF) work fine. • No Linux kernel/BPF panics and easier for routine testing. Suggestion: I recommend we point Mac contributors/developers away from Lima, and instead strongly suggest UTM or dual-boot for anyone doing serious Kmesh development. I’m happy to write up a clear warning or onboarding guide for the docs, to help others avoid this headache up front!
Thanks! Akarsh