Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly • Hacker News Board

Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#1

Post by rogaha » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly
wasmer.io

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#2

Post by akhilcacharya » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:18 PM UTC

Stupid question - how are they handling system calls in wasmer? I can't seem to find the answer easily.

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#3

Post by nazka » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

For people who like the idea, check Terrarium[1] from Fastly. They use Wasmer with Fastly services to have edge computing capabilities. Think AWS Lambda but in a CDN. It looks promising!

[1] https://wasm.fastlylabs.com/

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#4

Post by alexandernst » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

Is there anywhere I can find actual numbers in terms of performance gains from running NGINX like this vs "the usual way"?

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#5

Post by amelius » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

> Once installed, you will be able to run any wasm module (including Nginx!)

If you're running on Linux, I suppose that applies only to WASM modules that interface with a POSIX system (?)

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#6

Post by bno1 » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #2

Stupid question - how are they handling system calls in wasmer? I can't seem to find the answer easily.

I'm not very well informed but I assume that you just call functions which are implemented by the VM, in the same manner you do filesystem operations in nodejs.

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#7

Post by colordrops » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #5

> Once installed, you will be able to run any wasm module (including Nginx!) If you're running on Linux, I suppose that applies only to WASM modules that interface with a POSIX system (?)

Doesn't WASM interface with a JS/WASM VM, which is then responsible for interfacing with the OS? There are plenty of POSIX compatible VMs, including V8, the Chrome engine.

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#8

Post by IAmEveryone » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

alexandernst wrote: post #4

Is there anywhere I can find actual numbers in terms of performance gains from running NGINX like this vs "the usual way"?

I’d be surprised to see any “gains” (but also thankful for specific figures).

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#9

Post by amelius » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #7

amelius wrote: post #5

> Once installed, you will be able to run any wasm module (including Nginx!) If you're running on Linux, I suppose that applies only to WASM modules that interface with a POSIX system (?)

Doesn't WASM interface with a JS/WASM VM, which is then responsible for interfacing with the OS? There are plenty of POSIX compatible VMs, including V8, the Chrome engine.

What is the interface called then?

Sorry for being confused. Isn't Nginx coded for a POSIX system? Or did they specifically port it to WASM (with its own interface)

Re: Wasmer – Universal Binaries Powered by WebAssembly

#10

Post by syrusakbary » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #2

Stupid question - how are they handling system calls in wasmer? I can't seem to find the answer easily.

We first wanted to focus on running Emscripten-generated WebAssembly files, so we are wrapping the syscalls that Emscripten is using with the real syscalls under the hood.

Here's an example of that: https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer/blob/master/src/apis/emsc...