Firecracker MicroVMs • Hacker News Board

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#31

Post by capableweb » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #4

Is there something new that prompted this posting?

If I were to guess, I'd guess because Firecracker is something "that good hackers would find interesting" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#32

Post by jrk » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #31

sudhirj wrote: post #4

Is there something new that prompted this posting?

If I were to guess, I'd guess because Firecracker is something "that good hackers would find interesting" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think the question is raised because Firecracker was released years ago and has been posted and discussed many times before.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#33

Post by oneearedrabbit » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

cptnntsoobv wrote: post #30

andrewstuart wrote: post #29

Note that this Amazon developed technology does not work on Amazon Web Services instances. It does however work on Google, Azure and Digital Ocean instances where you can configure nested virtualisation.

It works on AWS's metal instances, doesn't it? That is definitely a constraint though, as the smallest available metal instances are pretty large, hence costly on a per instance basis.

Technically speaking you are right. If you are not limited to AWS, then even a $5 DigitalOcean instance is be able to host 4-5 VMs.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#34

Post by TruthWillHurt » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #4

Is there something new that prompted this posting?

Easy way to earn points.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#35

Post by rad_gruchalski » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

fbleagh wrote: post #11

paxys wrote: post #8

Does anyone know of any good orchestrators for Firecracker VMs? While the technology is great, the CLI and API are still a bit too complex and low-level to implement some basic use cases in production.

There's a firecracker driver for Hashi's Nomad. Haven't tried that driver, but nomad isn't bad. https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/drivers/external/firecracke...

It has problems on shutdown and few months ago didn’t work properly with namespaces, haven’t checked recently. Can be worked around…

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#36

Post by rad_gruchalski » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #8

Does anyone know of any good orchestrators for Firecracker VMs? While the technology is great, the CLI and API are still a bit too complex and low-level to implement some basic use cases in production.

I did this some months ago: https://github.com/combust-labs/firebuild. Plan is to come back to it sometime towards the end of the year.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#37

Post by rad_gruchalski » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

staticassertion wrote: post #2

For those using firecracker, what's your method for building a rootfs?

Directly from Docker image: https://github.com/combust-labs/firebuild#high-level-example. I’m the author.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#38

Post by rad_gruchalski » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #6

Best example of current usage that comes to mind (outside of AWS’s own Lambda & Fargate) is Fly.io - they they use Firecracker for all the containers.

There’s also Koyeb. I’m not affiliated.

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#39

Post by cutemonster » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #29

Note that this Amazon developed technology does not work on Amazon Web Services instances. It does however work on Google, Azure and Digital Ocean instances where you can configure nested virtualisation.

> does not work on Amazon Web Services instances

Why not? And what is Google, Azure and DI doing differently

Re: Firecracker MicroVMs

#40

Post by ahachete » Mon, Oct 18, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #8

Does anyone know of any good orchestrators for Firecracker VMs? While the technology is great, the CLI and API are still a bit too complex and low-level to implement some basic use cases in production.

If you want some easy-to-hack --but very hackish-- shell scripts, you may find this interesting: https://ongres.com/blog/automation-to-run-vms-based-on-vanil...