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Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

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Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

#31

Basically 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.

I can support docker - will ship a compatible kernel with the necessary flags in the next release.

I tried something like this already, also including nested kvm. I think this will increase the boot time quiet a bit.

Also libkrun is not secure by default. From their README.md:

> The libkrun security model is primarily defined by the consideration that both the guest and the VMM pertain to the same security context. For many operations, the VMM acts as a proxy for the guest within the host. Host resources that are accessible to the VMM can potentially be accessed by the guest through it.

> While defining the security implementation of your environment, you should think about the guest and the VMM as a single entity. To prevent the guest from accessing host's resources, you need to use the host's OS security features to run the VMM inside an isolated context. On Linux, the primary mechanism to be used for this purpose is namespaces. Single-user systems may have a more relaxed security policy and just ensure the VMM runs with a particular UID/GID.

> While most virtio devices allow the guest to access resources from the host, two of them require special consideration when used: virtio-fs and virtio-vsock+TSI.

> When exposing a directory in a filesystem from the host to the guest through virtio-fs devices configured with krun_set_root and/or krun_add_virtiofs, libkrun does not provide any protection against the guest attempting to access other directories in the same filesystem, or even other filesystems in the host.

Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

#33
post #22

see too[0][1] for projects of a similar* vein, incl historical account. *yes, FreeBSD is specifically developed against Firecracker which is specifically avoided w "Smol machines", but interesting nonetheless [0] https://github.com/NetBSDfr/smolBSD [1] https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/freebsd-fire...

that was one of my inspirations but I don't think they went far enough in innovation. microvm space is still underserved.

> that was one of my inspirations

Colins FreeBSD work or Emiles NetBSD work?

Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

#34

Hello, 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…

Hey this is super cool. I've been researching tech like this for my AI sandboxing solution, ended up with Lima+Incus: https://github.com/JanPokorny/locki

My problem with microVMs was that they usually won't run docker / kubernetes, I work on apps that consist of whole kubernetes clusters and want the sandbox to contain all that.

Does your solution support running k3s for example?

Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

#36

The feature that lets you create self-contained binaries seems like a potentially simpler way to package JVM apps than GraalVM Native. Probably a lot of other neat usecases for this, too smolvm pack create --image python:3.12-alpine -o ./python312 ./python312 run -- python3 --version # Python 3.12.x — isolated, no pyenv/venv/conda needed

yeah, it's analogous to Electron.

Electron ships your web app bundled with a browser.

Smol machines ship your software packaged with a linux vm. No need for dependency management or compatibility issues because it is baked in.

I think this is how Codex or Claude Code should be shipped by default, to avoid any isolation issues tbh

Re: Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

#39

Hello, 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,) there you go.

Otherwise this looks pretty compelling.

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