Anylinuxfs – macOS mount any Linux filesystem read/write using NFS and a microVM
a year ago
- #macOS
- #Linux Filesystems
- #NFS
- Mounting 3rd-party filesystems on macOS is tricky, with limited official support beyond NTFS read access.
- anylinuxfs provides a reliable solution for mounting Linux filesystems (ext*, btrfs) with write access via NFS and a microVM.
- The process is streamlined: pick a drive, mount with anylinuxfs, and it appears as an NFS share, with mount options forwarded to Linux.
- The microVM is fast, using a stripped-down Linux without UEFI, taking seconds to mount.
- Initial setup downloads an Alpine Linux image, reused for subsequent mounts; reinitialization is possible with 'anylinuxfs init'.
- Requires sudo for mount commands, but the VM runs under the user's permissions post-disk access.
- Limitations: only one drive at a time, Apple Silicon Macs only (due to libkrun).
- Built on libkrun, libkrunfw, gvproxy, and docker-nfs-server.