Local VM¶

A disposable virtual machine on your laptop. This is where you should try pless first — every command behaves the same as on real hardware, and a mistake costs you a vm destroy instead of a trip to fetch a keyboard.

Two backends, two rehearsals¶

The backend you pick decides which production path you are rehearsing:

Both distributions are equally supported and equally tested. If you are heading for a Pi, use Lima — it exercises the same SSH-bootstrap path and the same Debian package names.

Install a backend¶

brew install lima

brew install --cask multipass

Configure and create¶

[vm]
backend = "lima"      # or "multipass"
name = "pless-dev"
cpus = 2
memory = "4G"
disk = "20G"

pless vm create writes [host] for you, pointing at the VM's SSH config — which is how a machine whose port changes on every restart stays an ordinary host rather than a special case.

pless doctor
pless vm create

First run downloads a disk image, which takes a few minutes. After that, creating a VM is quick.

Run the flow¶

pless bootstrap                 # skip on multipass — cloud-init already did it
pless storage init --confirm    # use a throwaway passphrase here
pless deploy paperless
pless audit
pless tunnel                    # http://localhost:8000

Backup rehearses here too, and a VM is the right place to find out that you had the restic password wrong:

pless backup init               # a local repository is fine for a rehearsal
pless backup run
pless backup verify             # restore it and check the documents came back

On the Lima backend the VM gets no cloud-init, so pless bootstrap does the provisioning — exactly as it will on your Pi. On Multipass, cloud-init has already applied the same host spec at boot, mirroring how a cloud server comes up; running bootstrap anyway is harmless and idempotent.

Where the LUKS volume comes from¶

There is no second disk in a VM, so pless creates a sparse file and attaches it as a loop device. This is the same code path used on a Pi with data_mode = "file", which is the default there too — so the rehearsal is faithful, not an approximation.

A loop device does not survive a reboot. pless re-attaches it automatically on unlock and storage status, so you will not normally notice.

Things a VM cannot rehearse¶

Be clear-eyed about the limits. A VM will not tell you about the behaviour of real storage media, actual power-loss and boot-order behaviour, Pi-specific kernel or PCIe issues, or how long OCR really takes on the hardware you bought.

For everything else — the commands, the LUKS flow, the compose stack, the firewall, the audit, backup and restore — it is the real thing.

Clean up¶

pless vm destroy --confirm

You will be asked to type the VM's name. It deletes the machine and everything on it.