description Firecracker Overview
Developed at Amazon Web Services, Firecracker runs small virtual machines called microVMs. It uses Linux's KVM virtualization support and a deliberately limited virtual device model to reduce the overhead associated with a general-purpose virtual machine. Each microVM has its own guest kernel, giving it a different isolation boundary from a conventional container that shares the host kernel. Firecracker is associated with the infrastructure behind AWS Lambda and is relevant to serverless systems that need efficient, isolated execution.
Infrastructure engineers can also use the open-source project outside AWS. It suits builders of execution platforms who need control over virtual machine isolation and lifecycle. It is a virtualization component, so application packaging and orchestration require additional software.
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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