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Setting up a Development Environment for Firecracker

Firecracker uses KVM for the actual resource virtualization, hence setting up a development environment requires either a bare-metal machine (with hardware virtualization), or a virtual machine that supports nested virtualization. The different options are outlined below. Once the environment is set up, one can continue with the specific steps of setting up Firecracker (e.g., as outlined in the Getting Started instructions).

Local

Local Bare-Metal Machine

[TODO]

Local Virtual Machine

macOS with VMware Fusion

Note that Firecracker development on macOS has no hard dependency on VMware Fusion or Ubuntu. All that is required is a Linux VM that supports nested virtualization. This is but one example of that setup:

  1. Download and install VMware Fusion.
  2. Download an Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS ISO image.
  3. Open VMware Fusion, open the File menu, and select New... to bring up the Select the Installation Method window.
  4. Find the ISO image you downloaded in step 2, and drag it onto the VMware window opened in step 3.
  5. You should now be at the Create a New Virtual Machine window. Ensure the Ubuntu 18.04.2 image is highlighted, and click Continue.
  6. On the Linux Easy Install window, leave the Use Easy Install option checked, enter a password, and click Continue.
  7. On the Finish window, click Finish, and save the .vmwarevm file if prompted.
  8. After the VM starts up, open the Virtual Machine menu, and select Shut Down.
  9. After the VM shuts down, open the Virtual Machine menu, and select Settings....
  10. From the settings window, select Processors & Memory, and then unfurl the Advanced options section.
  11. Check the Enable hypervisor applications in this virtual machine option, close the settings window, open the Virtual Machine menu, and select Start Up.
  12. If you receive a Cannot connect the virtual device sata0:1 because no corresponding device is available on the host. error, you can respond No to the prompt.
  13. Once the VM starts up, log in as the user you created in step 6.
  14. After logging in, open the Terminal app, and run sudo apt install curl -y to install cURL.
  15. Now you can continue with the Firecracker Getting Started instructions to install and configure Firecracker in the new VM.

Cloud

AWS

Firecracker development environment on AWS can be setup using bare metal instances. Follow these steps to create a bare metal instance.

  1. If you don't already have an AWS account, create one using the AWS Portal.

  2. Login to AWS console. Bare metal instances are only supported in US East (N. Virginia) region at this time. This region is preselected for you in the Console.

  3. Click on Launch a virtual machine in Build Solution section.

  4. Firecracker requires a relatively new kernel, so you should use a recent Linux distribution - such as Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS (HVM), SSD Volume Type.

  5. In Step 2, scroll to the bottom and select i3.metal instance type. Click on Next: Configure Instance Details.

  6. In Step 3, click on Next: Add Storage.

  7. In Step 4, click on Next: Add Tags.

  8. In Step 5, click on Next: Configure Security Group.

  9. In Step 6, take the default security group. This opens up port 22 and is needed so that you can ssh into the machine later. Click on Review and Launch.

  10. Verify the details and click on Launch. If you do not have an existing key pair, then you can select Create a new key pair to create a key pair. This is needed so that you can use it later to ssh into the machine.

  11. Click on the instance id in the green box. Copy Public DNS from the Description tab of the selected instance.

  12. Login to the newly created instance:

    ssh -i <ssh-key> ubuntu@<public-ip>

Now you can continue with the Firecracker Getting Started instructions to use Firecracker to create a microVM.

GCP

One of the options to set up Firecracker for development purposes is to use a VM on Google Compute Engine (GCE), which supports nested virtualization and allows to run KVM. If you don't have a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account, you can find brief instructions in the Addendum below.

Here is a brief summary of steps to create such a setup (full instructions to set up a Ubuntu-based VM on GCE with nested KVM enablement can be found in GCE documentation).

  1. Select a GCP project and zone

    $ FC_PROJECT = your_name-firecracker
$ FC_REGION = us-east1
$ FC_ZONE = us-east1-b
    Click here for instructions to create a new project

    It might be convenient to keep your Firecracker-related GCP resources in a separate project, so that you can keep track of resources more easily and remove everything easily once your are done.

    For convenience, give the project a unique name (e.g., your_name-firecracker), so that GCP does not need to create a project id different than project name (by appending randomized numbers to the name you provide).

    $ gcloud projects create ${FC_PROJECT} --enable-cloud-apis --set-as-default


    $ gcloud config set project ${FC_PROJECT}
$ gcloud config set compute/region ${FC_REGION}
$ gcloud config set compute/zone ${FC_ZONE}

  2. The next step is to create a VM image able to run nested KVM (as outlined here).

    IMPORTANT: Notice that Firecracker requires a relatively new kernel, so you should use a recent Linux distribution image - such as Ubuntu 18 (used in the commands below), or equivalent.

    $ FC_VDISK=disk-ub18
$ FC_IMAGE=ub18-nested-kvm
$ gcloud compute disks create ${FC_VDISK}\
   --image-project ubuntu-os-cloud --image-family ubuntu-1804-lts
$ gcloud compute images create ${FC_IMAGE} --source-disk ${FC_VDISK}\
   --licenses "https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/vm-options/global/licenses/enable-vmx"\
   --source-disk-zone ${FC_ZONE}

  3. Now we create the VM:

    $ FC_VM = firecracker-vm
$ gcloud compute instances create ${FC_VM} --zone ${FC_ZONE}\
   --image ${FC_IMAGE}

  4. Connect to the VM via SSH.

    $ gcloud compute ssh ${FC_VM}

    When doing it for the first time, a key-pair will be created for you (you will be propmpted for a passphrase - can just keep it empty) and uploaded to GCE. Done! You should see the prompt of the new VM:

    ubuntu@firecracker-vm:~$

  5. Verify that VMX is enabled, enable KVM

    $ grep -cw vmx /proc/cpuinfo
1
$ sudo setfacl -m u:${USER}:rw /dev/kvm
$ [ -r /dev/kvm ] && [ -w /dev/kvm ] && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
OK

Now you can continue with the Firecracker Getting Started instructions to install and configure Firecracker in the new VM.

Addendum

Setting up a Google Cloud Platform account

In a nutshell, setting up a GCP account involves the following steps:

  1. Log in to GCP console with your Google credentials. If you don't have account, you will be prompted to join the trial.

  2. Install GCP CLI & SDK (full instructions can be found here)

    $ export CLOUD_SDK_REPO="cloud-sdk-$(lsb_release -c -s)"
$ echo "deb http://packages.cloud.google.com/apt $CLOUD_SDK_REPO main"\
  | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-cloud-sdk.list
$ curl https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/doc/apt-key.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y google-cloud-sdk

  3. Configure the gcloud CLI by running:

    $ gcloud init --console-only

    Follow the prompts to authenticate (open the provided link, authenticate, copy the token back to console) and select the default project.

Microsoft Azure

[TODO]