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An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit
by dist-epoch 2mo ago
An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts.
I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The containers only use 50 MB or so per instance (separate systemd, ...). This way I pay the VM RAM tax only once, and the agents are still contained inside the VM if they manage to escape the LXC containers.
- TacticalCoder 2mo agoYeah this basically. I differentiate between "containers I wrote" (where I packaged the app/wrote the OCI "Dockerfile" / container file) and "containers from other people": all those I wrote (for our own use) go into one VM, while all the other containers go into another VM. Then I've got a third VM for containers for the AI agents. This way I don't pay tens of VMs "tax" but basically only three (plus one or two VMs I use for testing enhancements to my VMs provisioning / optimization / securing setup, when I work on that). I don't use LXC (I could) but regular containers, inside VMs. I'll look into the stripped down "micro" VMs but then I don't spend my days launching VMs/shutting them down so it's not a big deal.
- apitman 2mo agoThis is what I do. Nice benefit is it lets me passthrough my GPU and share it between multiple containers. Incus is awesome.