Using vctl Command to Manage Containers and Run Kubernetes Cluster

You can use the vctl command-line utility in VMware Fusion to manage containers. In addition, vctl provides support for KIND so that KIND can use vctl container as "nodes" to run local Kubernetes clusters.

The vctl is a command-line utility bundled inside the VMware Fusion application.

Related binaries/components come bundled in the Fusion application and are available in Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vkd/ folder.

The three main binaries/components of the vctl command-line utility are summarized in the following section.

bin/containerd

This is a runtime daemon that runs in the background. The containerd daemon must be started first before you can run any container related operation. To start it, use the vctl system start command and to stop it use the vctl system stop command.

bin/containerd-shim-crx-v2

When a new container is started, a new containerd-shim-crx-v2 process is launched and works as an adapter between the container in CRX VM and the containerd daemon.

bin/vctl

It is a command-line utility that runs in the foreground and relays the user input to the containerd daemon.

Note: The vctl CLI runs every container inside a lightweight virtual machine, called CRX VM. By default, a CRX VM is created and starts up when a container starts. It shuts down and is removed when the container stops. The name of the CRX VM is same as the container.