4 ms·

For those not familiar with the project/name: Blink is a brand-new unprivileged userspace virtual machine that can emulate x86-64-linux binaries on any POSIX pl

For those not familiar with the project/name: Blink is a brand-new unprivileged userspace virtual machine that can emulate x86-64-linux binaries on any POSIX platform. It's basically a 220kb dependency-free static binary that implements about 600 x86 instructions and 180 Linux system calls, which makes Blink pretty good at running simple command line programs.

stavros 3y ago
What does that mean, though? I can run x64 Linux binaries on BSD? How about on ARM processors? On an M2?
- srgpqt 3y ago
  Yes to all of that.
- paulclinger 3y ago
  ARCHITECTURES = x86_64 x86_64-gcc49 i486 aarch64 arm mips s390x mipsel mips64 mips64el powerpc powerpc64le (https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/Makefile#L6 https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/Makefile#L6)
  - classichasclass 3y ago
    Would love a second pair of eyes on the powerpc64le JIT, since it partially works but hangs on some tests. https://github.com/jart/blink/issues/17 https://github.com/jart/blink/issues/17
- mayli 3y ago
  you can run some x86 binaries on any arch/os Yes, bsd/x86, mac/arm and all other posix compatible OS/arch.
- jitl 3y ago
  As the other commenters have said - yes. From the last paragraph of the link: > One of the projects currently using Blink is Cosmopolitan Libc. Blink is more embeddable than qemu-x86_64 since Blink is 22x tinier in terms of binary footprint. So what Cosmo does is it vendors prebuilt Blink binaries inside each of the x86-64 executables it compiles. That way, whenever someone tries to run these programs on a different architecture like Arm, the Actually Portable Executable shell script wrapper will simple extract the appropriate blink binary and re-run itself. Cosmopolitan LibC is truly “write once run anywhere” except instead of using JVM virtualization, it used x86_64 as the portable VM. Your users don’t need to install a VM or runtime, and you can ship a single exe that runs on all popular architectures and operating systems, including bare metal. See https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/ https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/
  - stavros 3y ago
    Huh, that's pretty damn cool, thanks!
  - nightowl_games 3y ago
    It's pretty sick, but is anyone actually doing it? It seems pretty scary to use to me.
    - bb010g 3y ago
      It's an unprivileged VM, so unless you're the type to do binary analysis before running things this is just as safe as any other binary.
Onavo 3y ago
What about direct syscall runtimes like Go's?
PurpleRamen 3y ago
According to google, there are somewhere between 900 to 4000 x86 instructions (not sure which value is correct or what variants means in this context), and 329 Linux calls. Meaning, there is a lot missing. Which leaves the question: will it communicate in an obvious way if it encounters an unknown instruction or call? Or can I check at least for potential problems before executing a program?
- jart 3y ago
  The default build (make MODE=) has logging enabled (so do the release binaries). If any system calls are missing, then Blink will return ENOSYS to the program and then create a "blink.log" file in the current directory reporting that, e.g. master jart@nightmare:~/cosmo$ blink ruby --yjit -e 'printf("%d\n",2+2)' <main>: warning: timer_create failed: Function not implemented, signals racy 4 master jart@nightmare:~/cosmo$ cat blink.log I2023-06-05T04:22:15.525179:blink/syscall.c:1020:29575 unsupported prctl op 0x29 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556803:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x122 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556866:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x122 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556886:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x0de You can also use `blink -es program...` to log system calls to stderr, similar to strace, when you need to troubleshoot further. Once you do that, please file a feature request.
  - sspiff 3y ago
    Is there a list of unsupported syscalls and instructions, and how to add support for them for people interested in contributing?
    - jart 3y ago
      Here are the missing system calls that people filed issues requesting: https://github.com/jart/blink/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Asyscalls https://github.com/jart/blink/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+... The place where they go is https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/blink/syscall.c https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/blink/syscall.c Looking forward to any changes you send us!
ehutch79 3y ago
Why was it named after the chrome rendering engine?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dormento 3y ago
From your explanation, I knew it must have been Justine before I saw the link in the post. Her work is nothing short of amazing.

stavros 3y ago

What does that mean, though? I can run x64 Linux binaries on BSD? How about on ARM processors? On an M2?

srgpqt 3y ago
Yes to all of that.
paulclinger 3y ago
ARCHITECTURES = x86_64 x86_64-gcc49 i486 aarch64 arm mips s390x mipsel mips64 mips64el powerpc powerpc64le (https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/Makefile#L6 https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/Makefile#L6)
- classichasclass 3y ago
  Would love a second pair of eyes on the powerpc64le JIT, since it partially works but hangs on some tests. https://github.com/jart/blink/issues/17 https://github.com/jart/blink/issues/17
mayli 3y ago
you can run some x86 binaries on any arch/os Yes, bsd/x86, mac/arm and all other posix compatible OS/arch.
jitl 3y ago
As the other commenters have said - yes. From the last paragraph of the link: > One of the projects currently using Blink is Cosmopolitan Libc. Blink is more embeddable than qemu-x86_64 since Blink is 22x tinier in terms of binary footprint. So what Cosmo does is it vendors prebuilt Blink binaries inside each of the x86-64 executables it compiles. That way, whenever someone tries to run these programs on a different architecture like Arm, the Actually Portable Executable shell script wrapper will simple extract the appropriate blink binary and re-run itself. Cosmopolitan LibC is truly “write once run anywhere” except instead of using JVM virtualization, it used x86_64 as the portable VM. Your users don’t need to install a VM or runtime, and you can ship a single exe that runs on all popular architectures and operating systems, including bare metal. See https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/ https://justine.lol/cosmopolitan/
- stavros 3y ago
  Huh, that's pretty damn cool, thanks!
- nightowl_games 3y ago
  It's pretty sick, but is anyone actually doing it? It seems pretty scary to use to me.
  - bb010g 3y ago
    It's an unprivileged VM, so unless you're the type to do binary analysis before running things this is just as safe as any other binary.

Onavo 3y ago

What about direct syscall runtimes like Go's?

PurpleRamen 3y ago

According to google, there are somewhere between 900 to 4000 x86 instructions (not sure which value is correct or what variants means in this context), and 329 Linux calls. Meaning, there is a lot missing. Which leaves the question: will it communicate in an obvious way if it encounters an unknown instruction or call? Or can I check at least for potential problems before executing a program?

jart 3y ago
The default build (make MODE=) has logging enabled (so do the release binaries). If any system calls are missing, then Blink will return ENOSYS to the program and then create a "blink.log" file in the current directory reporting that, e.g. master jart@nightmare:~/cosmo$ blink ruby --yjit -e 'printf("%d\n",2+2)' <main>: warning: timer_create failed: Function not implemented, signals racy 4 master jart@nightmare:~/cosmo$ cat blink.log I2023-06-05T04:22:15.525179:blink/syscall.c:1020:29575 unsupported prctl op 0x29 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556803:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x122 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556866:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x122 I2023-06-05T04:22:15.556886:blink/syscall.c:5720:29575 missing syscall 0x0de You can also use `blink -es program...` to log system calls to stderr, similar to strace, when you need to troubleshoot further. Once you do that, please file a feature request.
- sspiff 3y ago
  Is there a list of unsupported syscalls and instructions, and how to add support for them for people interested in contributing?
  - jart 3y ago
    Here are the missing system calls that people filed issues requesting: https://github.com/jart/blink/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Asyscalls https://github.com/jart/blink/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+... The place where they go is https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/blink/syscall.c https://github.com/jart/blink/blob/master/blink/syscall.c Looking forward to any changes you send us!

ehutch79 3y ago

Why was it named after the chrome rendering engine?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dormento 3y ago

From your explanation, I knew it must have been Justine before I saw the link in the post. Her work is nothing short of amazing.