AI BriefingHow to bypass the 2-VM limit on Apple Silicon (2023)
Key point
An analysis of the macOS VM limit of 2 on Apple Silicon and a method to bypass it via a kernel variable.
Details
macOS on Apple Silicon limits macOS VMs run via the Virtualization.framework to a maximum of 2 by default.
This limit is tied to a clause in Apple's license agreement, and in the actual implementation, a private variable inside the XNU kernel called hv_apple_isa_vm_quota manages the quota.
The key points are as follows.
- The quota increases and decreases as VMs are created and terminated.
- On a development kernel, this quota can be changed via boot-args.
- Through the article's analysis and experiments, the possibility of running more than 2 macOS VMs on a single machine is confirmed.
In other words, this is not just a product description, but a technical article that reverse-engineers the internal workings of the macOS virtualization limit.
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