5 ms·

Hello HN, author of the post here, happy to answer questions.

brian_herman 5y ago
How does this compare to https://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html https://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html? https://bellard.org/jslinux/ https://bellard.org/jslinux/
- easrng 5y ago
  And also https://copy.sh/v86 https://copy.sh/v86
  - remisharrock 5y ago
    And jor1k (JavaScript openrisc processor emulator) : well, they emulate processors (x86, openrisc..) in JavaScript while WebVM execute (transpiled?) code in webassembly
    - g3 5y ago
      v86 also recompiles machine code to web assembly. The main difference is that v86 is a hobby project (of which I'm the original author, by the way), with much fewer contributors and no (known) commercial users, and is much less sophisticated than this project. On the other hand, v86 is open source, so you could make it sophisticated if you wanted to :-) I'm not sure what exactly cheerps is used for; v86 is mostly used to demo operating systems (mostly hobby and vintage). We recently got SerenityOS to run: http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=serenity http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=serenity
- apignotti 5y ago
  Perf. Our JIT is extremely advanced. Of course different workloads will behave differently, but you are welcome to try multiple payloads and see for yourselves.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    What constitutes advanced?
easrng 5y ago
Is there support for loopback networking (for IPC)? Is there a way to translate HTTP(S) requests to `fetch` requests? How difficult would it be to port a Go app that uses https://github.com/pion/webrtc https://github.com/pion/webrtc to use the browser's native WebRTC?
- apignotti 5y ago
  HTTP request could be intercepted, but due to CORS they would most likely not succeed. I have not studied the WebRTC protocol in detail but it might be possible.
habitue 5y ago
Can you run containers in webvm?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
remisharrock 5y ago
Will you open source your code one day and if no, why not?
xmly 5y ago
How about the network stack? Is the VM can talk with other VMs from other browsers.
- apignotti 5y ago
  Not in the current implementation, but absolutely possible with WebRTC. We have done something equivalent some time ago: https://medium.com/p/29fbbc62c5ca https://medium.com/p/29fbbc62c5ca
  - tlarkworthy 5y ago
    I have REDIS driver working in web using websockify bridges (and there are a few other options) https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/redis https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/redis
Klasiaster 5y ago
So, this is a reimplementation of the Linux ABI and no Linux kernel source is involved, right?
- apignotti 5y ago
  That's correct.
  - Klasiaster 5y ago
    Have you tried compiling Linux as User Mode Linux with emscripten? I imagine something like this https://github.com/nabla-containers/nabla-linux https://github.com/nabla-containers/nabla-linux would run on wasm, too?
    - apignotti 5y ago
      Well, User Mode Linux would still require an underlying Linux ABI, for example mmap to implement pagination. With sufficient work it might be possible to actually run UM Linux _on top_ of CheerpX / WebVM. Implementing the Linux ABI ourselves gives us the opportunity of a tighter integration with the Web platform anyway.
btdmaster 5y ago
It seems to not work with my eager block settings. It works with a fresh Firefox profile though, so it's not clear what the issue exactly is though. I know for sure that the ext2 is never actually downloaded (0 byte response) and when I try to check anything in DevTools cxcore.wasm triggers a pause on debugger statement, which spikes the CPU. Any chance there could be a version with all the assets in one thing (say, GitHub Pages)?
thekozmo 5y ago
Impressive stuff! Worth to try to run the OSv unikernel (one of my babies) in it.
arturventura 5y ago
Hey dude, I've been screwing around implementing plan9 semantics in a OS like system for the browser (https://github.com/intigos/possimpible https://github.com/intigos/possimpible). I'm interested in using a x86 emulator inside a webwoker that I'm using for processes so I can run x86 code. How hard is something like this? Can you give me some pointers on how to start working on this? Thanks!
PeterisP 5y ago
Is this tech a reasonable way for cross-platform emulation, e.g. a x86 VM running on a browser on ARM hardware like the new Apple chips? In essence, for this approach, would the x86-on-x86 performance hit be similar or very different than the x86-on-ARM performance hit?
- apignotti 5y ago
  The actual host hardware does not matter, neither in terms of support or performance, theoretically. We currently optimize the codegen for Chrome/V8 on x86.
bonzini 5y ago
What performance bottlenecks are there that can still be improved? Right now I see a ~6x slowdown on small-code benchmarks like sieve, but it goes up to 50x or more for large code like GCC. For QEMU it's roughly 1.6x and 2-3x respectively, so it seems like your JIT is slower than QEMU's.

How does this compare to https://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html https://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html? https://bellard.org/jslinux/ https://bellard.org/jslinux/

easrng 5y ago
And also https://copy.sh/v86 https://copy.sh/v86
- remisharrock 5y ago
  And jor1k (JavaScript openrisc processor emulator) : well, they emulate processors (x86, openrisc..) in JavaScript while WebVM execute (transpiled?) code in webassembly
  - g3 5y ago
    v86 also recompiles machine code to web assembly. The main difference is that v86 is a hobby project (of which I'm the original author, by the way), with much fewer contributors and no (known) commercial users, and is much less sophisticated than this project. On the other hand, v86 is open source, so you could make it sophisticated if you wanted to :-) I'm not sure what exactly cheerps is used for; v86 is mostly used to demo operating systems (mostly hobby and vintage). We recently got SerenityOS to run: http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=serenity http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=serenity
apignotti 5y ago
Perf. Our JIT is extremely advanced. Of course different workloads will behave differently, but you are welcome to try multiple payloads and see for yourselves.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  What constitutes advanced?

easrng 5y ago

Is there support for loopback networking (for IPC)? Is there a way to translate HTTP(S) requests to `fetch` requests? How difficult would it be to port a Go app that uses https://github.com/pion/webrtc https://github.com/pion/webrtc to use the browser's native WebRTC?

apignotti 5y ago
HTTP request could be intercepted, but due to CORS they would most likely not succeed. I have not studied the WebRTC protocol in detail but it might be possible.

habitue 5y ago

Can you run containers in webvm?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

remisharrock 5y ago

Will you open source your code one day and if no, why not?

xmly 5y ago

How about the network stack? Is the VM can talk with other VMs from other browsers.

apignotti 5y ago
Not in the current implementation, but absolutely possible with WebRTC. We have done something equivalent some time ago: https://medium.com/p/29fbbc62c5ca https://medium.com/p/29fbbc62c5ca
- tlarkworthy 5y ago
  I have REDIS driver working in web using websockify bridges (and there are a few other options) https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/redis https://observablehq.com/@tomlarkworthy/redis

Klasiaster 5y ago

So, this is a reimplementation of the Linux ABI and no Linux kernel source is involved, right?

apignotti 5y ago
That's correct.
- Klasiaster 5y ago
  Have you tried compiling Linux as User Mode Linux with emscripten? I imagine something like this https://github.com/nabla-containers/nabla-linux https://github.com/nabla-containers/nabla-linux would run on wasm, too?
  - apignotti 5y ago
    Well, User Mode Linux would still require an underlying Linux ABI, for example mmap to implement pagination. With sufficient work it might be possible to actually run UM Linux _on top_ of CheerpX / WebVM. Implementing the Linux ABI ourselves gives us the opportunity of a tighter integration with the Web platform anyway.

btdmaster 5y ago

It seems to not work with my eager block settings. It works with a fresh Firefox profile though, so it's not clear what the issue exactly is though. I know for sure that the ext2 is never actually downloaded (0 byte response) and when I try to check anything in DevTools cxcore.wasm triggers a pause on debugger statement, which spikes the CPU. Any chance there could be a version with all the assets in one thing (say, GitHub Pages)?

thekozmo 5y ago

Impressive stuff! Worth to try to run the OSv unikernel (one of my babies) in it.

arturventura 5y ago

Hey dude, I've been screwing around implementing plan9 semantics in a OS like system for the browser (https://github.com/intigos/possimpible https://github.com/intigos/possimpible). I'm interested in using a x86 emulator inside a webwoker that I'm using for processes so I can run x86 code. How hard is something like this? Can you give me some pointers on how to start working on this? Thanks!

PeterisP 5y ago

Is this tech a reasonable way for cross-platform emulation, e.g. a x86 VM running on a browser on ARM hardware like the new Apple chips? In essence, for this approach, would the x86-on-x86 performance hit be similar or very different than the x86-on-ARM performance hit?

apignotti 5y ago
The actual host hardware does not matter, neither in terms of support or performance, theoretically. We currently optimize the codegen for Chrome/V8 on x86.

bonzini 5y ago

What performance bottlenecks are there that can still be improved? Right now I see a ~6x slowdown on small-code benchmarks like sieve, but it goes up to 50x or more for large code like GCC. For QEMU it's roughly 1.6x and 2-3x respectively, so it seems like your JIT is slower than QEMU's.