Anka RUN

Execute operation inside Vm from the host with RUN

Use anka run command, similar to docker run to execute operation inside the Vm from the host where it's running. Returns 125 on timeout.

anka run --help
Usage: anka run [OPTIONS] VM_NAME COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Run commands inside VM environment

Options:
  -w, --workdir PATH              Working directory inside the VM
  -v, --volumes-from, --volume PATH
                                  Mount host directory (current directory by default) into VM . '--volumes-from' is
                                  deprecated form
  -n, --no-volumes-from, --no-volume
                                  Use this flag to prevent implicit mounting of current folder (see --volume
                                  option). '--no-volumes-from' is deprecated form
  -E, -e, --env                   Inherit environment variables. '-e' is deprecated form
  -f, --env-file PATH             Provide environment variables from file
  -N, --wait-network              Wait till guest network interface up
  -T, --wait-time                 Wait for guest time sync
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

$ anka run VMNAME sudo whoami
root

anka run requires automatic login to be enabled for the user. By default, it uses anka user.

anka run, when run in default mode with no flags, mounts the current folder from the host into the VM and executes commands on this mount point as current directory.

It's also possible to explicitly specify mount directory inside VM, using this syntax -v /host/folder:/mnt/path, e.g:

anka run -v $PWD:/tmp/mountpoint_1 VMNAME pwd

Note Currently only single volume could be specified in the run command. If you need more than one folder shared between host and the VM, use anka mount/unmount commands.

anka mount VMNAME ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning\ Profiles/ /Users/anka/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning\ Profiles/
anka run VMNAME xcodebuild -exportOptionsPlist exportInfo.plist archive

Note VM should be in running state for mount command to work.

Examples of anka run usage

anka run sierrav40c1 xcodebuild -sdk iphonesimulator -scheme Kickstarter-iOS build - Will mount the default directory from the host into the sierrav40c1 Vm and execute build.

anka run -w /Applications VMNAME ls -l - Will pipe the results of ls -l from the VM's /Applications directory.

anka run -v . VMNAME ls - Will mount the host current directory inside the VM, execute ls, pipe the results and unmount.

anka run -v . VMNAME xcodebuild ... - Will mount the current directory from the developer machine(host) to the VM and execute an xcodebuild command and pipe the results back.

anka run sudo ... - Executes commands inside the VM with sudo privileges. For instance:

anka run VMNAME cp -R simpledir /Users/anka - Will copy the current host directory to the VM at /Users/anka location

anka run -n sierrav40c1 xcodebuild -sdk iphonesimulator -scheme Kickstarter-iOS build - Will not mount the current host directory and execute build in the VM current directory

If you need more configuration changes to the VM, before anka run execution, you could start the VM with corresponding parameters, or write the parameters to VM configuration with anka modify command.

Working with environment variables using anka run

anka run command doesn't use .profile, .bash_profile by itself. To configure the environment variables, you can pass it with anka run -f environment.txt, where environment.txt is a text file in the form VARIABLE=VALUE, one variable per line.

To inherit entire host's environment, use anka run -E command, but in this case existing guests variables will not be overridden by host's variables.

In order to use environment variables from VMs .bash_profile, execute the following command via intermediate bash.

anka run ios-temp bash -c 'source ~/.bash_profile; ./iPhone/make_build -b dev -c 1 -d ./build -e Mobile -z'

Few things to note

anka run doesn't support TTY mode, but you could easily use POSIX streams as with regular bash tool.

anka run -n VNMANE whoami > /dev/null

cat file.txt | anka run -n VMNAME md5

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