3 ms·

been using orbstack but this smol stuff is interesting is this firecracker or total rewrite

binsquare 4mo ago
author of smol machines here, it has no relation to firecracker. It runs ontop of the libkrun vmm forked with optimizations, which is the underlying lib powering podman as well. open source, will contribute upstream when possible: https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun
- glenjamin 4mo ago
  Upthread the implication seems to be that smolmachines would be in some way a replacement for orbstack to run docker containers But it seems more like a completely different way to run isolated workloads?
  - binsquare 4mo ago
    smol machines is a virtual machine, akin to firecracker but designed to run locally as well It also has container-inages support built-in with crun so you can create a VM with a container running by default. You can also just... run docker inside of it.
- zuzululu 4mo ago
  good stuff man i just installed it and its super fast im just not sure is this really secure to run untrusted code i can't find any white papers
  - binsquare 4mo ago
    the underlying vmm is libkrun: https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun is battle tested and used for podman. It provides kernel isolation for running untrusted code which is a security boundary that traditional containers can't guarantee. I'm engaged with a third party security penetration company for their review, and will be happy to share it publicly when it is available.
    - zuzululu 4mo ago
      thank you. definitely enjoying smol. this is a very nice alternative to docker, orbstack even firecracker
LeBit 4mo ago
Can smolmachines run devcontainers? K3d?
- binsquare 4mo ago
  yes to both, here's the example for running docker(indirectly, devcontainers) inside smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/docker-in-vm/docker.smolfile https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/d...
  - LeBit 4mo ago
    This is very cool. The example is thorough and well documented. I am trying smolmachines this weekend. Thanks.

author of smol machines here, it has no relation to firecracker. It runs ontop of the libkrun vmm forked with optimizations, which is the underlying lib powering podman as well. open source, will contribute upstream when possible: https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun https://github.com/smol-machines/libkrun

glenjamin 4mo ago
Upthread the implication seems to be that smolmachines would be in some way a replacement for orbstack to run docker containers But it seems more like a completely different way to run isolated workloads?
- binsquare 4mo ago
  smol machines is a virtual machine, akin to firecracker but designed to run locally as well It also has container-inages support built-in with crun so you can create a VM with a container running by default. You can also just... run docker inside of it.
zuzululu 4mo ago
good stuff man i just installed it and its super fast im just not sure is this really secure to run untrusted code i can't find any white papers
- binsquare 4mo ago
  the underlying vmm is libkrun: https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun https://github.com/libkrun/libkrun is battle tested and used for podman. It provides kernel isolation for running untrusted code which is a security boundary that traditional containers can't guarantee. I'm engaged with a third party security penetration company for their review, and will be happy to share it publicly when it is available.
  - zuzululu 4mo ago
    thank you. definitely enjoying smol. this is a very nice alternative to docker, orbstack even firecracker

LeBit 4mo ago

Can smolmachines run devcontainers? K3d?

binsquare 4mo ago
yes to both, here's the example for running docker(indirectly, devcontainers) inside smolvm: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/docker-in-vm/docker.smolfile https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm/blob/main/examples/d...
- LeBit 4mo ago
  This is very cool. The example is thorough and well documented. I am trying smolmachines this weekend. Thanks.