vm-manager/docs/book/vmfile/overview.html
Till Wegmueller b37beea0f5
Add mdbook documentation for vmctl and vm-manager
Comprehensive docs covering CLI reference, VMFile.kdl format,
architecture, library API, tutorials, and advanced topics.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-02-15 13:37:22 +01:00

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<h1 id="vmfilekdl-overview"><a class="header" href="#vmfilekdl-overview">VMFile.kdl Overview</a></h1>
<p><code>VMFile.kdl</code> is the declarative configuration format for vmctl. It uses <a href="https://kdl.dev">KDL</a> (KDL Document Language), a human-friendly configuration language.</p>
<h2 id="discovery"><a class="header" href="#discovery">Discovery</a></h2>
<p>vmctl looks for <code>VMFile.kdl</code> in the current directory by default. You can override this with <code>--file</code>:</p>
<pre><code class="language-bash">vmctl up --file path/to/MyVMFile.kdl
</code></pre>
<h2 id="basic-structure"><a class="header" href="#basic-structure">Basic Structure</a></h2>
<p>A VMFile contains one or more <code>vm</code> blocks, each defining a virtual machine:</p>
<pre><code class="language-kdl">vm "name" {
// image source (required)
// resources
// networking
// cloud-init
// ssh config
// provisioners
}
</code></pre>
<h2 id="path-resolution"><a class="header" href="#path-resolution">Path Resolution</a></h2>
<p>All paths in a VMFile are resolved relative to the directory containing the VMFile. Tilde (<code>~</code>) is expanded to the user's home directory.</p>
<pre><code class="language-kdl">// Relative to VMFile directory
image "images/ubuntu.qcow2"
// Absolute path
image "/opt/images/ubuntu.qcow2"
// Home directory expansion
cloud-init {
ssh-key "~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub"
}
</code></pre>
<h2 id="validation"><a class="header" href="#validation">Validation</a></h2>
<p>vmctl validates the VMFile on parse and provides detailed error messages with hints:</p>
<ul>
<li>VM names must be unique.</li>
<li>Each VM must have exactly one image source (<code>image</code> or <code>image-url</code>, not both).</li>
<li>Shell provisioners must have exactly one of <code>inline</code> or <code>script</code>.</li>
<li>File provisioners must have both <code>source</code> and <code>destination</code>.</li>
<li>Network type must be <code>"user"</code>, <code>"tap"</code>, or <code>"none"</code>.</li>
</ul>
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