Installation

Build Farrow, verify native acceleration, and understand the one-time host setup.

Supported path today

Build from the current checkout:

cd /path/to/farrow
make build
export PATH="$PWD/bin:$PATH"
farrow version
farrow doctor

There is no published v1 package yet. Do not substitute an unofficial binary for the matching farrow and farrow-hosts-helper build.

The source build requires Go 1.27.x. macOS also needs an existing Homebrew installation; Farrow can install QEMU through Homebrew but never bootstraps Homebrew itself. The current compiled image repository is the development host https://m0/farrow; use FARROW_REPO or --repo when another reachable mirror is required.

Host requirements and dated evidence

Native HVF/KVM is the normal path. Farrow never retries an arbitrary native failure under emulation. TCG is selected only for an explicit foreign vm_arch, or for the catalogued stock EL8 arm64/Apple-Silicon incompatibility. TCG is compatibility evidence, never performance evidence.

Host	Last recorded evidence (2026-08-27)
macOS arm64	verified with HVF, QEMU 11.1, and socket_vmnet
Ubuntu 26.04 amd64	verified with KVM, QEMU 10.2.1, and NetworkManager
Rocky Linux 8.10 arm64 guest on macOS arm64	verified with automatic TCG and full readiness
other Debian/Fedora/EL9 amd64	implemented; repeat native validation before relying on it
macOS amd64, Linux arm64	cross-built and unit-tested, not currently native-verified

macOS needs Homebrew. Linux needs systemd plus either NetworkManager or systemd-networkd. farrow setup installs missing supported packages through Homebrew, APT, or DNF.

What setup changes

Run a dry plan first if desired:

farrow setup --dry-run
farrow setup --yes

Setup may install QEMU dependencies, prepare the host fixed-IP network, and install the narrow root-owned hosts publisher. It prints each mutation and the reason for sudo before applying anything.

In automation use --yes. Non-interactive sudo works with either a cached credential or a suitable NOPASSWD policy; every privileged command still uses an exact absolute argv.

Setup is idempotent. A healthy repeat reuses the network and installed helper. Source tests and this dated native matrix are separate: rebuilding a newer working tree does not silently refresh the rows above.