Environment variables

The pomme command reads the following environment variables.

Variable	Description
POMME_VM_NAME	The VM that a command acts on when you omit the VM name.
POMME_AUTHORIZED_USER	The existing guest owner account that authorizes a SIP or AMFI change.
POMME_AUTHORIZED_PASSWORD	The password for POMME_AUTHORIZED_USER.
POMME_APP_SUPPORT_DIR	An alternative directory for Pomme’s host data.

POMME_VM_NAME

Sets the default VM for commands that accept an optional VM name, such as pomme status, pomme exec, and pomme sessions list, and for the pomme ui commands that take --vm. A name that you pass on the command line always takes precedence.

export POMME_VM_NAME=dev
pomme status
pomme exec -- /usr/bin/sw_vers

Pomme never selects a VM on its own, even if only one VM is running. If you omit the name and POMME_VM_NAME isn’t set, the command fails with the following message and exit code 64:

Error: Specify a VM name or set POMME_VM_NAME.

POMME_AUTHORIZED_USER and POMME_AUTHORIZED_PASSWORD

Authorize a SIP or AMFI change on a VM that already has an owner account, including the security changes that pomme mdm makes before it enrolls. Set both variables. If you set only one, Pomme rejects the command.

Pomme passes the password to its credential boundary separately. It never puts the password in command arguments or in a workflow journal.

Caution

Environment variables can be visible to other processes that run as your user, and shells can save them in history. Prefer the interactive prompt or the Keychain credential that Pomme stores for the VM. If you use these variables, set them only for the one command, and don’t export them in a shell profile.

For details, see Security workflows.

POMME_APP_SUPPORT_DIR

Replaces ~/Library/Application Support/pomme as the directory where Pomme stores VMs, templates, restore images, and other host data. Pomme ignores an empty value.

This variable is intended for isolated testing. VMs and templates in one data directory are invisible to commands that use another, so a VM that you create with this variable set doesn’t appear in pomme list without it.

Variables named by flags

Some flags take the name of an environment variable instead of a value:

• pomme ui type --text-env VARIABLE types the value of VARIABLE into the guest. Use it to keep secrets out of the command line and shell history.

What’s next

• Files and paths
• Command-line reference