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libkrun

libkrun is a dynamic library that allows programs to easily acquire the ability to run processes in a partially isolated environment using KVM Virtualization.

It integrates a VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor, the userspace side of an Hypervisor) with the minimum amount of emulated devices required to its purpose, abstracting most of the complexity that comes from Virtual Machine management, offering users a simple C API.

Possible use cases

  • Adding VM-isolation capabilities to an OCI runtime.
  • Implementing a lightweight jailer for serverless workloads.
  • Bringing additional self-isolation capabilities to conventional services (think of something as simple as chroot, but more powerful).

Goals and non-goals

Goals

  • Enable other projects to easily gain KVM-based process isolation capabilities.
  • Be self-sufficient (no need for calling to an external VMM) and very simple to use.
  • Be as small as possible, implementing only the features required to achieve its goals.
  • Have the smallest possible footprint in every aspect (RAM consumption, CPU usage and boot time).
  • Be compatible with a reasonable amount of workloads.

Non-goals

  • Become a generic VMM.
  • Be compatible with all kinds of workloads.

Variants

This project provides two different variants of the library:

  • libkrun: Generic variant compatible with all Virtualization-capable systems.
  • libkrun-sev: Variant including support for AMD SEV (bare SEV and SEV-ES) memory encryption and remote attestation. Requires an SEV-capable CPU.

Each variant generates a dynamic library with a different name (and soname), so both can be installed at the same time in the same system.

Virtio device support

All variants

  • virtio-console
  • virtio-vsock (specialized for TSI, Transparent Socket Impersonation)

libkrun

  • virtio-fs
  • virtio-balloon (only free-page reporting)
  • virtior-rng

libkrun-sev

  • virtio-block

Networking

In libkrun, networking is implemented using a novel technique called Transparent Socket Impersonation, or TSI. This allows the VM to have network connectivity without a virtual interface (hence, virtio-net is not among the list of supported devices).

This technique supports both outgoing and incoming connections. It's possible for userspace applications running in the VM are able to transparently connect to endpoints outside the VM, and also receive connections from the outside to ports listening inside the VM.

Limitations

TSI only supports impersonating AF_INET SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_STREAM sockets. This implies it's not possible to communicate outside the VM with raw sockets.

Building and installing

Linux (generic variant)

Requirements

  • libkrunfw
  • A working Rust toolchain
  • C Library static libraries, as the init binary is statically linked (package glibc-static in Fedora)
  • patchelf

Compiling

make

Installing

sudo make install

Linux (SEV variant)

Requirements

  • The SEV variant of libkrunfw, which provides a libkrunfw-sev.so library.
  • A working Rust toolchain
  • C Library static libraries, as the init binary is statically linked (package glibc-static in Fedora)
  • patchelf
  • OpenSSL headers and libraries (package openssl-devel in Fedora).

Compiling

make SEV=1

Installing

sudo make SEV=1 install

macOS

Requirements

As part of libkrun building process, it's necessary to produce a Linux ELF binary from init/init.c. The easiest way to do this is by using a binary version of krunvm and its dependencies (libkrunfw, and libkrun itself), such as the one available in the krunvm Homebrew repo, and then executing the build_on_krunvm.sh script found in this repository.

This will create a lightweight Linux VM using krunvm with the current working directory mapped inside it, and produce the Linux ELF binary from init/init.c.

Building the library using krunvm

./build_on_krunvm.sh
make

Using the library

Despite being written in Rust, this library provides a simple C API defined in include/libkrun.h

Examples

chroot_vm

This is a simple example providing chroot-like functionality using libkrun.

Building chroot_vm

cd examples
make

Running chroot_vm

To be able to chroot_vm, you need first a directory to act as the root filesystem for your isolated program.

Use the rootfs target to get a rootfs prepared from the Fedora container image (note: you must have podman installed):

make rootfs

Now you can use chroot_vm to run a process within this new root filesystem:

./chroot_vm ./rootfs_fedora /bin/sh

If the libkrun and/or libkrunfw libraries were installed on a path that's not included in your /etc/ld.so.conf configuration, you may get an error like this one:

./chroot_vm: error while loading shared libraries: libkrun.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To avoid this problem, use the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to point to the location where the libraries were installed. For example, if the libraries were installed in /usr/local/lib64, use something like this:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib64 ./chroot_vm rootfs/ /bin/sh

Status

libkrun has achieved maturity and starting version 1.0.0 the public API is guaranteed to be stable, following SemVer.

Known users

  • crun: An OCI runtime that can make use of libkrun to run containers with Virtualization-based isolation.
  • krunvm: A CLI tool for creating and running microVMs based on OCI images.

Getting in contact

The main communication channel is the VirTEE Matrix channel.

Acknowledgments

libkrun incorporates code from Firecracker, rust-vmm and Cloud-Hypervisor.