Releases

Lima v2.1.3 is a security-focused patch release fixing two CVEs: a privilege escalation in QEMU VMs and multiple containerd CVEs bundled via nerdctl v2.3.3. Upgrade promptly.

• securityPatch QEMU privilege escalation (CVE-2026-53657) immediately

  Any unprivileged user inside a QEMU-backed Lima VM could gain root inside that VM by abusing the guest agent socket. If you share Lima VMs among multiple users or run untrusted workloads, this is high priority. Upgrade to v2.1.3 and restart affected VMs.

• securitycontainerd CVE batch via nerdctl v2.3.3 — upgrade required

  Five CVEs in containerd are fixed in the bundled nerdctl v2.3.3 (containerd v2.3.2). If your Lima instances run container workloads, the old containerd is exposed. Upgrade Lima and recreate or restart VMs to pick up the new nerdctl binary.

• breakingcontainerd.user defaults changed for non-Linux guests

  Lima no longer sets containerd.user=true by default on non-Linux guests (macOS, Windows). If you relied on rootless containerd on those platforms without explicitly setting this, validate your VM config after upgrading and set containerd.user=true explicitly if needed.

Lima v2.1.1 is a focused patch release adding Windows binary artifacts and fixing a handful of edge-case bugs, with an important bundled nerdctl security update.

• securityUpdate nerdctl distribution for BuildKit and CNI security fixes

  The bundled nerdctl was bumped from v2.2.1 to v2.2.2, which updates BuildKit to 0.28.1 and CNI plugins to 1.9.1. Both upstream releases include security patches. If you use Lima's nerdctl template for container workloads, upgrade to v2.1.1 promptly and check the BuildKit and CNI plugin release notes to assess CVE impact for your environment.

• enhancementWindows users can now consume official Lima binaries

  Lima v2.1.1 ships pre-built Windows artifacts for the first time. If your team has Windows developers using Lima (e.g., via WSL2), point them at the official release binaries rather than maintaining custom builds. This simplifies onboarding and keeps everyone on a verified, reproducible build.

• enhancementFix UID range issues for enterprise/LDAP-managed macOS users

  macOS guests now accept UIDs outside the conventional range. If any users in your org run Lima on corporate-managed Macs with directory-assigned UIDs (common with LDAP or Active Directory integration), this fixes silent failures that were hard to diagnose. No config change needed — just upgrade.