4 ms·

I am very fond of the idea of a from-scratch userspace written entirely in Go. I've been dreaming of building something like gokrazy for servers. Or possibly so

• hyperthesis 3y ago
  To some extent, android is this with java. For a low-powered device, would a Go usespace bring particular benefits? (Though, even the cheapest phones today aren't really "low-powered" anymore)
  • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    Go has memory safety (via GC rather than fancy ownership, but if it works it works); that's an asset anywhere that can afford the overhead. Edit: In order to preempt the argument others are having: Safer than C, anyways, while being much easier than rust.
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      If only we didn't need the const dance for enumerations, even Pascal like ones, to yet another 10 years, I guess.
      • jrockway 3y ago
        I don't have a big problem using codegen to get "syntax" for enumerations. "go generate ./..." before you checkin, save yourself some typing. I have used this in the past: https://github.com/abice/go-enum https://github.com/abice/go-enum But mostly use protos as much as possible these days. (The enum is going to be in the API, might as well use the same object inside the app.)
        • pjmlp 3y ago
          I left that kind of gimmicks behind me in C++ compilers for MS-DOS.
  • pjmlp 3y ago
    There are USB security keys running Go bare metal, https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-hardware/usb-armory https://www.withsecure.com/en/solutions/innovative-security-... Look for TamaGo on the page.
• marcus_holmes 3y ago
  Same - I've been playing around with Unikernels for the same reason. Running my web server as the only process on the machine really appeals. Attack surface is tiny, basically non-existent. If the web server falls over, reboot the machine (which should be fast because it only has to load the kernel & the Go program). It's basically the opposite of containers, which I like hehe.
  • fuzztester 3y ago
    Interesting. Which unikernel do you use?
    • marcus_holmes 3y ago
      I've been looking at a few. https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv https://ops.city/ https://ops.city/ (also nanovms) - this is one that I actually got working to at least demo state
      • fuzztester 3y ago
        Interesting, and thanks. I didn't know about those. I kind of thought you may have used MirageOS, which I had read about earlier. It is done in OCaml. https://mirage.io/ https://mirage.io/
        • marcus_holmes 3y ago
          That's fascinating, thanks for the link. But I'm coding in Go, and it looks like (from skimming the docs) that MirageOS only works with OCaml. I'll have to look further.
          • fuzztester 3y ago
            Welcome. Yes, IIRC it is written in and only works with OCaml.
• preisschild 3y ago
  Talos Linux basically implements their entire userspace in Go and its similar to BottleRocketOS, because it is designed to host Kubernetes. https://www.talos.dev/ https://www.talos.dev/ https://github.com/siderolabs/talos https://github.com/siderolabs/talos
  • cedws 3y ago
    Wow cool, thanks.
• pjmlp 3y ago
  See TamaGo, https://github.com/usbarmory/tamago https://github.com/usbarmory/tamago Or TinyGo, https://tinygo.org/docs/reference/microcontrollers/ https://tinygo.org/docs/reference/microcontrollers/
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• lifty 3y ago
  Another project that aims to deliver this is Linuxkit (https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit https://github.com/linuxkit/linuxkit). All the components they ship are written in memory safe languages (usually Go) and run as containers under containerd. You can build a custom image very easily, fully defined as a YAML file.
• 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y ago
  There is also u-root which is "A fully Go userland with Linux bootloaders! u-root can create a one-binary root file system (initramfs) containing a busybox-like set of tools written in Go." https://github.com/u-root/u-root https://github.com/u-root/u-root