5 ms·

MicroVM by QEMU

142 points by kbumsik 3y ago

nateb2022 3y ago
Related: "Microvm, qboot and feature reduced qemu in ubuntu" https://cpaelzer.github.io/blogs/009-microvm-in-ubuntu/ https://cpaelzer.github.io/blogs/009-microvm-in-ubuntu/
SomewhatLikely 3y ago
Not being familiar with this area the page didn't help me understand the use case. This explanation of firecracker makes some sense though: "firecracker is purposefully minimal to present less possibility for configuration mishaps and importantly minimal attack surface (it's usually used to run untrusted workloads). Also full control by ReST-API makes it easy to orchestrate." https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74512158/what-makes-the-firecracker-microvm-micro-vs-something-like-qemu https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74512158/what-makes-the-...
hrdwdmrbl 3y ago
They mentioned a baseline for benchmarking but didn’t offer any benchmarks. I’d enjoy seeing some if anyone has.
dang 3y ago
Related ongoing thread: We replaced Firecracker with QEMU - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36666782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36666782 - July 2023 (137 comments) Previously: Show HN: microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461701 - Nov 2019 (20 comments)
solarkraft 3y ago
It's a very cool thing and through the magic of virtiofs I'm (almost) at a point at which I have a script that I can point at a directory with a Linux file system and boot it in a microVM in under a second. It required quite a bit of trial and error because the components aren't very well documented and don't seem to be made for each other. I meant to publish something about it but never got around to it.
- kyoji 3y ago
  This sounds interesting, would you be willing to share what you have so far?
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    I guess this is better than nothing: https://gist.github.com/solarkraft/c22b2742741a3dbc07a9082667962d16#file-launch https://gist.github.com/solarkraft/c22b2742741a3dbc07a908266... It'll likely be a lot of work to get going, but it might contain some valuable hints that I had to search for through mailing lists and reading the QEMU source. I remember needing a semi-custom kernel (maybe) and (I think) the rust version of virtiofsd.

142 points by kbumsik 3y ago

nateb2022 3y ago

Related: "Microvm, qboot and feature reduced qemu in ubuntu" https://cpaelzer.github.io/blogs/009-microvm-in-ubuntu/ https://cpaelzer.github.io/blogs/009-microvm-in-ubuntu/

SomewhatLikely 3y ago

Not being familiar with this area the page didn't help me understand the use case. This explanation of firecracker makes some sense though: "firecracker is purposefully minimal to present less possibility for configuration mishaps and importantly minimal attack surface (it's usually used to run untrusted workloads). Also full control by ReST-API makes it easy to orchestrate." https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74512158/what-makes-the-firecracker-microvm-micro-vs-something-like-qemu https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74512158/what-makes-the-...

hrdwdmrbl 3y ago

They mentioned a baseline for benchmarking but didn’t offer any benchmarks. I’d enjoy seeing some if anyone has.

dang 3y ago

Related ongoing thread: We replaced Firecracker with QEMU - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36666782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36666782 - July 2023 (137 comments) Previously: Show HN: microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21461701 - Nov 2019 (20 comments)

solarkraft 3y ago

It's a very cool thing and through the magic of virtiofs I'm (almost) at a point at which I have a script that I can point at a directory with a Linux file system and boot it in a microVM in under a second. It required quite a bit of trial and error because the components aren't very well documented and don't seem to be made for each other. I meant to publish something about it but never got around to it.

kyoji 3y ago
This sounds interesting, would you be willing to share what you have so far?
- solarkraft 3y ago
  I guess this is better than nothing: https://gist.github.com/solarkraft/c22b2742741a3dbc07a9082667962d16#file-launch https://gist.github.com/solarkraft/c22b2742741a3dbc07a908266... It'll likely be a lot of work to get going, but it might contain some valuable hints that I had to search for through mailing lists and reading the QEMU source. I remember needing a semi-custom kernel (maybe) and (I think) the rust version of virtiofsd.