5 Minutes to Firecracker with Packet

I was eager to try Firecracker after hearing about its release at re:Invent 2018. The microVM technology require access to the hardware; a bare metal server is needed. GCP and AWS both offer bare metal machines. I opted to go with Packet, a company that specializes in bare metal-as-a-service.

You can sign up for an account at Packet that comes with a $25 service credit. Use this to fire up a c1.small.x86 server. I tried using the smaller t1.small.x86 server type but encountered problems. I found available capacity in the EWR1 region.

Firecracker requires a 4.14+ kernel version. I selected Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as the operating system to get a recent kernel. Then off to the races!

Packet’s automation provisions bare metal servers in about a minute.

SSH Window 1

root@firecracker:~# curl -LOJ https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/releases/download/v0.11.0/firecracker-v0.11.0
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 610 0 610 0 0 4039 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 4039
100 6006k 100 6006k 0 0 11.2M 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 11.2M
curl: Saved to filename 'firecracker-v0.11.0'
root@firecracker:~# mv firecracker-v0.11.0 firecracker
root@firecracker:~# chmod +x firecracker
root@firecracker:~# ./firecracker --api-sock /tmp/firecracker.socket

SSH Window 2

root@firecracker:~# curl -fsSL -o hello-vmlinux.bin https://s3.amazonaws.com/spec.ccfc.min/img/hello/kernel/hello-vmlinux.bin
root@firecracker:~# curl -fsSL -o hello-rootfs.ext4 https://s3.amazonaws.com/spec.ccfc.min/img/hello/fsfiles/hello-rootfs.ext4
root@firecracker:~# curl --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -i \
> -X PUT 'http://localhost/boot-source' \
> -H 'Accept: application/json' \
> -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
> -d '{
> "kernel_image_path": "./hello-vmlinux.bin",
> "boot_args": "console=ttyS0 reboot=k panic=1 pci=off"
> }'
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2018 09:52:32 GMT

root@firecracker:~# curl --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -i \
> -X PUT 'http://localhost/drives/rootfs' \
> -H 'Accept: application/json' \
> -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
> -d '{
> "drive_id": "rootfs",
> "path_on_host": "./hello-rootfs.ext4",
> "is_root_device": true,
> "is_read_only": false
> }'
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2018 09:52:39 GMT

root@firecracker:~# curl --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -i \
> -X PUT 'http://localhost/actions' \
> -H 'Accept: application/json' \
> -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
> -d '{
> "action_type": "InstanceStart"
> }'
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2018 09:52:46 GMT

root@firecracker:~#

Now if you return to Window 1, you’ll see the VM’s boot messages and login prompt.

Welcome to Alpine Linux 3.8
Kernel 4.14.55-84.37.amzn2.x86_64 on an x86_64 (ttyS0)

localhost login:

You can access the VM using root/root.

I encourage readers to check out Packet while experimenting with Firecracker. Edge computing is a hot topic and this company has an impressive service.