Shared VM storage for Orka CI artifacts

Platform	Status	Notes
Apple silicon, macOS Ventura and later	Supported as of Orka 3.0	Requires Orka VM Tools
Intel, macOS Ventura (13) and Sonoma (14)	Supported

Orka 3.6 is the last release to support Intel. Shared VM storage remains available for Intel VMs through the Orka 3.6 support window, but future Orka releases will not support Intel Mac hosts. If you still run Intel workloads, we recommend migrating to Apple silicon and completing the transition by December 2027. See the compatibility matrix for details.

Orka 3.5 default change: Shared VM storage is disabled by default for new Orka deployments. Existing deployments retain the previous setting (enabled). To enable shared storage on a new deployment, open a support ticket.

Orka 3.5.2: Per-instance shared attached disk sizing is now supported. On AWS, set VM_SHARED_DISK_SIZE in each instance’s user data script. On-prem, set osx_node_orka_vm_shared_disk_size via Ansible. See the Orka 3.5.2 release notes for full setup steps.

Overview

Starting with Orka 1.6.0, all deployed Intel-based VMs will have access to a shared storage volume in the cluster. Starting with Orka 2.1.0, all deployed ARM-based VMs will have access to the same shared storage. This storage can be used to cache build artifacts in-between stages of your CI/CD pipeline, for example, or host Xcode installers and other build dependencies. Orka offers two different ways to utilize shared VM storage:

By default, the VM shared storage directory will be placed on the primary NFS storage export for your cluster. This means that VM shared storage will share storage space with VM images and ISOs, so please keep this in mind!
Optionally, you may request to provision a secondary storage export that will be dedicated to shared storage. This is ideal if you plan to share a lot of data between your CI/CD pipeline builds.

Shared Storage in ARM-based VMs

In ARM-based VMs the shared storage will be automatically mounted and available to use. Same storage is shared between ARM-based and Intel-based VMs.

To use shared VM storage with VMs deployed on ARM nodes, your image must include Orka VM Tools. Orka VM Tools is required for shared storage to automount in the VM.Learn more about pulling an image

Shared Storage in Intel-based VMs

sudo mount_9p orka

The volume will be mounted at /Volumes/orka. The first time you attempt to access the filesystem via Terminal, you will be asked to grant the Terminal application permissions to access files on a network volume: Click the OK button to allow access. You will then be able to access files on the volume:

Automount shared storage in Intel-based VMs

Instead of mounting the shared storage manually after every OS restart, you can create a /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mount9p.plist to handle automounting the shared storage.

Connect to your VM via SSH.

     ssh <macOS_user>@<VM_IP> -p <SSH_PORT>

Make sure that /Volumes/orka is already mounted on the VM.

     ls /Volumes

If not already mounted, mount the shared VM storage.

     sudo mount_9p orka

Navigate to /Library/LaunchDaemons and create a com.mount9p.plist file.

     cd /Library/LaunchDaemons  
       
     ls  
       
     sudo vim com.mount9p.plist

Copy the following contents and paste them in Vim. Type :wq to save and exit.
com.mount9p.plist

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>  
     <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">  
     <plist version="1.0">  
     <dict>  
     <key>Label</key>  
     <string>com.mount9p.plist</string>  
     <key>RunAtLoad</key>  
     <true/>  
     <key>StandardErrorPath</key>  
     <string>/var/log/mount_9p_error.log</string>  
     <key>StandardOutPath</key>  
     <string>/var/log/mount_9p.log</string>  
     <key>ProgramArguments</key>  
     <array>  
     <string>/bin/bash</string>  
     <string>-c</string>  
     <string>mkdir -p /Volumes/orka && mount_9p orka</string>  
     </array>  
     </dict>  
     </plist>

Change the ownership and permissions for com.mount9p.plist.

     sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mount9p.plist  
     sudo chmod 600 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mount9p.plist

Reboot the VM and save or commit the VM image.

Limitations

Reading and Writing Data

You may encounter permissions issues when reading or writing data to the shared storage volume. In order to get around this, you may need to become the root user to write data to the shared storage volume. If you need to give a specific user read and write access to files, you can add that user to the group 107. For example, if your CI user is called machine-user create the group ci:

sudo dscl . create /Groups/ci  
sudo dscl . create /Groups/ci gid 107  
sudo dscl . create /Groups/ci passwd '*'  
sudo dscl . create /Groups/ci GroupMembership machine-user

Confirm the above changes were made with the command dscl . read /Groups/ci. Reboot the virtual machine and save or commit the VM image to persist these changes.

Files must be given group write access to be modified by the user you have added to the 107 group. For example, sudo chmod g+w myfile.txt.

Cluster storage limits

If you are using the default primary storage export in your cluster for shared VM storage, keep in mind that this storage is also used to host your Orka VM images and other data. This should be acceptable for sharing a limited set of files between virtual machines but is not recommended for intensive IO. In the case that you require frequent use of multiple reads and writes to the shared storage volume, setting up dedicated secondary storage is highly recommended.

Known Issues

When connecting to the VM over SSH and attempting to access the shared storage volume, you may encounter the error orka: Operation not permitted: To fix this issue, connect to the VM via VNC and navigate to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access. Click the padlock to make changes: You will then be prompted to enter your password. Next, click the checkbox next to sshd-keygen-wrapper: Click the padlock again to prevent further changes. You should now be able to access the shared storage volume over an SSH connection. IMPORTANT Make sure to save or commit the VM image after completing the above steps to persist changes.

MacStadium

Orka

MacStadium VDI

IaaS

Shared VM storage for Orka CI artifacts

Overview

Shared Storage in ARM-based VMs

Shared Storage in Intel-based VMs

Automount shared storage in Intel-based VMs

Limitations

Reading and Writing Data

Cluster storage limits

Known Issues

​Overview

​Shared Storage in ARM-based VMs

​Shared Storage in Intel-based VMs

​Automount shared storage in Intel-based VMs

​Limitations

​Reading and Writing Data

​Cluster storage limits

​Known Issues

Overview

Shared Storage in ARM-based VMs

Shared Storage in Intel-based VMs

Automount shared storage in Intel-based VMs

Limitations

Reading and Writing Data

Cluster storage limits

Known Issues