In case anyone else has this question...
virl-utils documentation, based on the version, may not specify the needed flag to perform a 'virl up' action with just a *.virl file. You'll need to perform this command:
- virl up -f <filename>.virl
And that will start up a simulation based on your virl file. Also, I noticed that your environment is defaulted to "default", so you can add a -e flag with an environment name (ex. -e test ) to have the environment name changed.