firecracker README

The project's README from github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker. As one markdown file: README.md.

Firecracker Logo Title

Our mission is to enable secure, multi-tenant, minimal-overhead execution of container and function workloads.

Read more about the Firecracker Charter here.

What is Firecracker?

Firecracker is an open source virtualization technology that is purpose-built for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant container and function-based services that provide serverless operational models. Firecracker runs workloads in lightweight virtual machines, called microVMs, which combine the security and isolation properties provided by hardware virtualization technology with the speed and flexibility of containers.

Overview

The main component of Firecracker is a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that uses the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) to create and run microVMs. Firecracker has a minimalist design. It excludes unnecessary devices and guest-facing functionality to reduce the memory footprint and attack surface area of each microVM. This improves security, decreases the startup time, and increases hardware utilization. Firecracker has also been integrated in container runtimes, for example Kata Containers and Flintlock.

Firecracker was developed at Amazon Web Services to accelerate the speed and efficiency of services like AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate. Firecracker is open sourced under Apache version 2.0.

To read more about Firecracker, check out firecracker-microvm.io.

Getting Started

To get started with Firecracker, download the latest release binaries or build it from source.

You can build Firecracker on any Unix/Linux system that has Docker running (we use a development container) and bash installed, as follows:

git clone https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker
cd firecracker
tools/devtool build
toolchain="$(uname -m)-unknown-linux-musl"

The Firecracker binary will be placed at build/cargo_target/${toolchain}/debug/firecracker. For more information on building, testing, and running Firecracker, go to the quickstart guide.

The overall security of Firecracker microVMs, including the ability to meet the criteria for safe multi-tenant computing, depends on a well configured Linux host operating system. A configuration that we believe meets this bar is included in the production host setup document.

Contributing

Firecracker is already running production workloads within AWS, but it's still Day 1 on the journey guided by our mission. There's a lot more to build and we welcome all contributions.

To contribute to Firecracker, check out the development setup section in the getting started guide and then the Firecracker contribution guidelines.

Releases

New Firecracker versions are released via the GitHub repository releases page, typically every two or three months. A history of changes is recorded in our changelog.

The Firecracker release policy is detailed here.

Design

Firecracker's overall architecture is described in the design document.

Features & Capabilities

Firecracker consists of a single micro Virtual Machine Manager process that exposes an API endpoint to the host once started. The API is specified in OpenAPI format. Read more about it in the API docs.

The API endpoint can be used to:

Built-in Capabilities:

Tested platforms

We test all combinations of:

Instance Host OS & Kernel Guest Rootfs Guest Kernel
m5n.metal (Intel Cascade Lake) al2 linux_5.10 ubuntu 24.04 linux_5.10
m6i.metal (Intel Ice Lake) al2023 linux_6.1 linux_6.1
al2023 linux_6.18
m7i.metal-24xl (Intel Sapphire Rapids)
m7i.metal-48xl (Intel Sapphire Rapids)
m8i.metal-48xl (Intel Granite Rapids)*
m8i.metal-96xl (Intel Granite Rapids)*
m6a.metal (AMD Milan)
m7a.metal-48xl (AMD Genoa)
m6g.metal (Graviton 2)
m7g.metal (Graviton 3)
m8g.metal-24xl (Graviton 4)
m8g.metal-48xl (Graviton 4)
m9g.metal-48xl (Graviton 5)

*: We only support AWS EC2 8th Gen Intel (*8i) instances using a 6.1 or 6.18 host kernel. This is due to poor kernel support for Granite Rapids CPUs on 5.10.

Known issues and Limitations

Performance

Firecracker's performance characteristics are listed as part of the specification documentation. All specifications are a part of our commitment to supporting container and function workloads in serverless operational models, and are therefore enforced via continuous integration testing.

Policy for Security Disclosures

The security of Firecracker is our top priority. If you suspect you have uncovered a vulnerability, contact us privately, as outlined in our security policy document; we will immediately prioritize your disclosure.

FAQ & Contact

Frequently asked questions are collected in our FAQ doc.

You can get in touch with the Firecracker community in the following ways:

When communicating within the Firecracker community, please mind our code of conduct.

firecracker (firecracker-microvm/firecracker)

virtual-machine
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37.5K ·GitHub
Firecracker
What is this?Firecracker is an open-source virtualization technology for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant microVMs for container and function-based serverless workloads.
Is this a container runtime or something else?It's a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that uses Linux KVM to run lightweight microVMs, combining hardware virtualization security with container-like speed; it has been integrated into container runtimes like Kata Containers and Flintlock.
How do I get it running?Download the latest release binaries or build from source using Docker (a development container) and bash on any Unix/Linux system; the binary ends up at build/cargotarget/${toolchain}/debug/firecracker.
Do I need KVM and a specific host setup?Yes, it requires the Linux KVM subsystem on the host, and for safe multi-tenant use it depends on a well-configured host OS as described in the production host setup document.
Any known limitations I should know about?On aarch64, the pl031 RTC device doesn't support interrupts, so guest programs relying on an RTC alarm (like hwclock) won't work; it's also only tested on specific AWS EC2 metal instance/kernel combinations.
Does it work on both Intel and ARM hardware?Yes, it's tested across Intel (Cascade Lake, Ice Lake, Sapphire Rapids, Granite Rapids), AMD (Milan, Genoa), and AWS Graviton (ARM) metal instances.
How does the jailer improve security?The Jailer process starts Firecracker in production scenarios by applying a cgroup/namespace isolation barrier and then dropping privileges before the microVM runs.
What can I configure through the API?The API endpoint lets you set vCPU count, memory size, CPU templates, network interfaces, file-backed block devices with rate limiters, vsock sockets, entropy and pmem devices, memory hotplugging, and even hot-plug virtio PCI devices while running, plus logging and metrics.
How fast and lightweight are these microVMs?MicroVMs default to 1 vCPU and 128 MiB of memory, use demand fault paging and CPU oversubscription by default, and are built to minimize startup time and attack surface by excluding unnecessary devices.
How often are new versions released?New Firecracker versions are released via GitHub roughly every two or three months, with changes tracked in the changelog.
What are similar projects?motor-os, ftl, CubeSandbox, open-compute, smolvm, allox-os, arcbox, gvisor
Which topics is it in?minimalist, virtual-machine, kernel, virtualization, serverless, infrastructure, aws, containers, sandbox, cloud, networking, performance
Creator
firecracker-microvm
Size
42.3 MB
Stars
37.5K
Updated
CommitOct 16Releasev1.17.0Sep 10
Age
9y
Commits · 90 Days