Quickstart

SLIRP network mode

This is the simplest networking mode. Machines in this mode do not require sudo priveledges, but do require individual ports to be forwarded to host in order to be useful.

To launch a brand new instance:

alpine launch #launches with default parameters
alpine launch -a aarch64 #create an aarch64 instance
alpine launch -d 10G -c 4 -m 2048 #create a machine with a 10GB disk, 4 cpus and 2GB of RAM

Access instance via ssh:

alpine launch -s 22 #launch a instance and expose SSH port to host port 22
ssh root@localhost -p 22 #password: root

Expose additional instance ports to host:

alpine launch -s 23 -p 8888,5432 #launch a instance, expose SSH to host port 23 and forward instance ports 8888 and 5432 to host ports 8888 and 5432

Instances can be easily packaged for export and re-use as tar.gz files:

alpine list

NAME                STATUS      SSH    PORTS ARCH        PID
forthright-hook     Running     23           aarch64     91598
hot-cow             Running     22           x86_64      82361

alpine publish hot-cow

This will create a file hot-cow.tar.gz which can be imported as:

alpine import hot-cow.tar.gz

VMNet-shared mode

The instance requires to be launched as sudu. This mode uses Apple's VMNet-Shared mode, which provides every machine a dynamic IP address. All ports are automatically accessible through host.

sudo alpine launch --shared