What are you actually doing on top of libkrun? Providing really small machine images that boot quickly? If I run the smolvm run --image alpine example, what is "alpine?" Where is that image coming from? Does this have some built-in default registry of machine images it pulls from? Does it need an Internet connection that allows outbound access to wherever this registry runs? Is it one of a default set of pre-built images that comes with the software itself and is stored on my own filesystem? Where are the builds for these images? Where do these machine images end up? ~/.local/share/smolvm/?
Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
41–50 of 162 posts
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#42hi! congrats for your work that's really nice.
question: why do you report that qemu is 15sthanks a lot
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#43Hello, I'm building a replacement for docker containers with a virtual machine with the ergonomics of containers + subsecond start times. I worked in AWS previously in the container space + with firecracker. I realized the container is an unnecessary layer that slowed things down + firecracker was a technology designed for AWS org structure + usecase. So I ended up building a hybrid taking the best of containers with…
What is the status of supporting live migration? That's the one feature of similar systems that always gets left out. I understand why: it's not a priority for "cloud native" workloads. The world, however, has work loads that are not cloud native, because that comes at a high cost, and it always will. So if you'd like a real value-add differentiator for your micro-VM platform (beyond what I believe you already have,)…
Really appreciate the suggestion! By "live migration", do you mean keeping the existing files and migrate them elsewhere with the vm?
Thanks
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#44We’re using smolmachines to create environments for our agents to execute code. It’s been great so far and the team is super responsive. The dev ergonomics are also great.
Really appreciate it! Would love to work together to make this easier to use.
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the status of supporting live migration? That's the one feature of similar systems that always gets left out. I understand why: it's not a priority for "cloud native" workloads. The world, however, has work loads that are not cloud native, because that comes at a high cost, and it always will. So if you'd like a real value-add differentiator for your micro-VM platform (beyond what I believe you already have,)…
Really appreciate the suggestion! By "live migration", do you mean keeping the existing files and migrate them elsewhere with the vm? Thanks
I mean making any given VM stop on host A and appear on host B; e.g. standard Qemu/KVM:
virsh migrate --live GuestName DestinationURL
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#46smolvm is awesome. The team is highly responsive and very experienced. They clearly know what they’re doing.
I’m currently evaluating smolvm for my project, https://withcave.ai, where I’m using Incus for isolation. The initial integration results look very promising!
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#47Hello, I'm building a replacement for docker containers with a virtual machine with the ergonomics of containers + subsecond start times. I worked in AWS previously in the container space + with firecracker. I realized the container is an unnecessary layer that slowed things down + firecracker was a technology designed for AWS org structure + usecase. So I ended up building a hybrid taking the best of containers with…
What is the status of supporting live migration? That's the one feature of similar systems that always gets left out. I understand why: it's not a priority for "cloud native" workloads. The world, however, has work loads that are not cloud native, because that comes at a high cost, and it always will. So if you'd like a real value-add differentiator for your micro-VM platform (beyond what I believe you already have,)…
It helps if you offer a concrete use case, as in how large the heap is, what kinda of blackout period you can handle, and whether the app can handle all of it's open connections being destroyed, etc. The more an app can handle resetting some of it's own state, the easier LM is going to be to implement. If your workload jives with CRIU https://github.com/checkpoint-restore/criu you could do this already.
By what I assume is your definition, there are plenty of "non cloud native" workloads running on clouds that need live migration. Azure and GCP use LM behind the scenes to give the illusion of long uptime hosts. Guest VMs are moved around for host maintenance.
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#48Can .smolmachine be digitally signed and self authenticate when run? Similar to https://docs.sylabs.io/guides/main/user-guide/signNverify.ht...
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#49Basically any open source project nowadays run their software stack in containers often requiring docker compose. Unfortunatley Smol machines do not support Docker inside the microvms and they also do not support nested VMs for things that use Vagrant. I think this is a big drawback.
So Vagrant is launching the VM locally, is that why it needs nesting?
Would you be ok with a trampoline that launched the VM as a sibling to the Vagrant VM?
Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
#50smolvm is awesome. The team is highly responsive and very experienced. They clearly know what they’re doing. I’m currently evaluating smolvm for my project, https://withcave.ai , where I’m using Incus for isolation. The initial integration results look very promising!
Cannot thank you more for this! Lets' work together to see how we can make this easier for cave!