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Firecracker

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description Firecracker Overview

Firecracker is a containerization technology developed by Amazon Web Services. It enables the creation of small, isolated virtual machines called microVMs. These VMs are notable for their speed and efficiency, making them ideal for serverless applications and other scenarios requiring secure runtime environments. Firecracker is primarily used by developers and system administrators deploying applications on AWS services like Lambda and those needing granular control over application isolation.

help Firecracker FAQ

Who created the Firecracker microVM technology?

Firecracker was developed entirely in Rust by Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineers and released as open-source in 2018. AWS specifically designed it to handle the high-volume, multi-tenant workloads required by services like AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate.

How fast can Firecracker boot up a microVM?

Firecracker is engineered for extreme speed and can boot a minimal microVM in as little as 125 milliseconds. This incredible performance is achieved by stripping out unnecessary legacy device drivers typically found in standard QEMU virtualization.

Does Firecracker use containers for isolation?

No, Firecracker relies on the Linux KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor to provide hardware-level virtualization and isolation. Unlike standard Docker containers that share the host kernel, each Firecracker microVM runs its own independent kernel.

Can I run Firecracker microVMs on my local Linux machine?

Yes, as long as your local machine runs a Linux kernel version 4.14 or newer and supports KVM hardware virtualization, you can run Firecracker. However, it lacks built-in networking features, so users must manually configure tap devices to connect the microVMs to the internet.

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