The overall goal is to push MirageOS into production in a trustworthy way. We worked on reproducible builds for Opam packages and MirageOS - with the infrastructure being reproducible itself. Reproducible builds are crucial for supply chain security - everyone can reproduce the exact same binary (by using the same sources and environment), without reproducible builds we would not publish binaries.
Reproducible builds are also great for fleet management: by inspecting the hash of the binary that is executed, we can figure out which versions of which libraries are in the unikernel - and suggest updates if newer builds are available or if a used library has a security flaw -- albatross-client-local update my-unikernel is everything needed for an update.
MirageOS is an operating system, developed in OCaml, which produces unikernels. A unikernel serves a single purpose and is a single process, i.e. only has the really needed dependencies. For example, an OpenVPN endpoint does neither include persistent storage (block device, file system) nor user management. MirageOS unikernels are developed in OCaml, a statically typed and type-safe programming language - which avoids common pitfalls from the grounds up (spatial and temporal memory safety issues).
Robur is a collective that develops MirageOS and OCaml software with open source license. It was started in 2017, and is part of the non-profit company center for the cultivation of technology. We received funding from several projects (prototypefund, NGI pointer), donations, and commercial contracts.
Deploying MirageOS unikernel
-
To run a MirageOS unikernel on your laptop or computer with virtualization extensions (VT-x - KVM/BHyve), you first have to install the solo5-hvt and albatross packages. Afterwards you need to setup a virtual network switch (a bridge interface) where your unikernels will communicate, and forwarding.
+
To run a MirageOS unikernel on your laptop or computer with virtualization extensions (VT-x - KVM/BHyve), you first have to install the solo5 and albatross packages. Afterwards you need to setup a virtual network switch (a bridge interface) where your unikernels will communicate, and forwarding.
Host system package installation
For Debian and Ubuntu systems, we provide package repositories. Browse the dists folder for one matching your distribution, and add it to /etc/apt/sources.list:
$ wget -q -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/apt.robur.coop.gpg https://apt.robur.coop/gpg.pub
$ echo "deb https://apt.robur.coop ubuntu-20.04 main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list # replace ubuntu-20.04 with e.g. debian-11 on a debian buster machine
$ apt update
-$ apt install solo5-hvt albatross
+$ apt install solo5 albatross
On FreeBSD:
$ fetch -o /usr/local/etc/pkg/robur.pub https://pkg.robur.coop/repo.pub # download RSA public key
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ $ echo 'robur: {
enabled: yes
}' > /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/robur.conf # Check https://pkg.robur.coop which ABI are available
$ pkg update
-$ pkg install solo5-hvt albatross
+$ pkg install solo5 albatross
For other distributions and systems we do not (yet?) provide binary packages. You can compile and install them using opam (opam install solo5 albatross). Get in touch if you're keen on adding some other distribution to our reproducible build infrastructure.
There is no configuration needed. Start the albatross_console and the albatross_daemon service (via systemctl daemon-reload ; systemctl start albatross_daemon on Linux or service albatross_daemon start on FreeBSD). Executing albatross-client-local info should return success (exit code 0) and no running unikernel. You may need to be in the albatross group, or change the permissions of the Unix domain socket (/run/albatross/util/vmmd.sock on Linux, /var/run/albatross/util/vmmd.sock on FreeBSD).
diff --git a/atom b/atom
index 030e35b..cd02059 100644
--- a/atom
+++ b/atom
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-urn:uuid:8167ecfe-9676-11e7-8dc1-68f728e7bbbcrobur2022-11-10T16:46:33-00:002021-11-16T15:06:35-00:00<p>In 2021 we in <a href="https://robur.coop/">Robur</a> have been working towards easing deployment of reproducible mirage applications. The work has been funded by the European Union under the <a href="https://pointer.ngi.eu/">Next Generation Internet (NGI Pointer) initiative</a>. The result is <a href="https://builds.robur.coop">online</a>.</p>
+urn:uuid:8167ecfe-9676-11e7-8dc1-68f728e7bbbcrobur2022-11-17T12:59:08-00:002021-11-16T15:06:35-00:00<p>In 2021 we in <a href="https://robur.coop/">Robur</a> have been working towards easing deployment of reproducible mirage applications. The work has been funded by the European Union under the <a href="https://pointer.ngi.eu/">Next Generation Internet (NGI Pointer) initiative</a>. The result is <a href="https://builds.robur.coop">online</a>.</p>
<p>The overall goal is to push MirageOS into production in a trustworthy way. We worked on reproducible builds for <a href="https://opam.ocaml.org">Opam</a> packages and <a href="https://mirageos.org">MirageOS</a> - with the infrastructure being reproducible itself. Reproducible builds are crucial for supply chain security - everyone can reproduce the exact same binary (by using the same sources and environment), without reproducible builds we would not publish binaries.</p>
<p>Reproducible builds are also great for fleet management: by inspecting the hash of the binary that is executed, we can figure out which versions of which libraries are in the unikernel - and suggest updates if newer builds are available or if a used library has a security flaw -- <code>albatross-client-local update my-unikernel</code> is everything needed for an update.</p>
<p>Several ready-to-use MirageOS unikernels are built on a daily basis - ranging from <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/dns-primary-git/">authoritative DNS servers</a> (<a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/dns-secondary/">secondary</a>, <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/dns-letsencrypt-secondary/">let's encrypt DNS solver</a>), <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/dnsvizor/">DNS-and-DHCP service (similar to dnsmasq)</a>, <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/tlstunnel/">TLS reverse proxy</a>, <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/unipi/">Unipi - a web server that delivers content from a git repository</a>, <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/dns-resolver/">DNS resolver</a>, <a href="https://builds.robur.coop/job/caldav/">CalDAV server</a>, and of course your own MirageOS unikernel.</p>
@@ -6,13 +6,13 @@
<p><a href="https://mirageos.org">MirageOS</a> is an operating system, developed in OCaml, which produces unikernels. A unikernel serves a single purpose and is a single process, i.e. only has the really needed dependencies. For example, an OpenVPN endpoint does neither include persistent storage (block device, file system) nor user management. MirageOS unikernels are developed in <a href="https://ocaml.org">OCaml</a>, a statically typed and type-safe programming language - which avoids common pitfalls from the grounds up (spatial and temporal memory safety issues).</p>
<p><a href="https://robur.coop">Robur</a> is a collective that develops MirageOS and OCaml software with open source license. It was started in 2017, and is part of the non-profit company <a href="https://techcultivation.org">center for the cultivation of technology</a>. We received funding from several projects (<a href="https://prototypefund.de">prototypefund</a>, <a href="https://pointer.ngi.eu">NGI pointer</a>), donations, and commercial contracts.</p>
<h2>Deploying MirageOS unikernel</h2>
-<p>To run a MirageOS unikernel on your laptop or computer with virtualization extensions (VT-x - KVM/BHyve), you first have to install the <code>solo5-hvt</code> and <code>albatross</code> packages. Afterwards you need to setup a virtual network switch (a bridge interface) where your unikernels will communicate, and forwarding.</p>
+<p>To run a MirageOS unikernel on your laptop or computer with virtualization extensions (VT-x - KVM/BHyve), you first have to install the <code>solo5</code> and <code>albatross</code> packages. Afterwards you need to setup a virtual network switch (a bridge interface) where your unikernels will communicate, and forwarding.</p>
<h3>Host system package installation</h3>
<p>For Debian and Ubuntu systems, we provide package repositories. Browse the <a href="https://apt.robur.coop/dists">dists</a> folder for one matching your distribution, and add it to <code>/etc/apt/sources.list</code>:</p>
<pre><code>$ wget -q -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/apt.robur.coop.gpg https://apt.robur.coop/gpg.pub
$ echo "deb https://apt.robur.coop ubuntu-20.04 main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list # replace ubuntu-20.04 with e.g. debian-11 on a debian buster machine
$ apt update
-$ apt install solo5-hvt albatross
+$ apt install solo5 albatross
</code></pre>
<p>On FreeBSD:</p>
<pre><code>$ fetch -o /usr/local/etc/pkg/robur.pub https://pkg.robur.coop/repo.pub # download RSA public key
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ $ echo 'robur: {
enabled: yes
}' > /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/robur.conf # Check https://pkg.robur.coop which ABI are available
$ pkg update
-$ pkg install solo5-hvt albatross
+$ pkg install solo5 albatross
</code></pre>
<p>For other distributions and systems we do not (yet?) provide binary packages. You can compile and install them using <a href="https://opam.ocaml.org">opam</a> (<code>opam install solo5 albatross</code>). Get in touch if you're keen on adding some other distribution to our reproducible build infrastructure.</p>
<p>There is no configuration needed. Start the <code>albatross_console</code> and the <code>albatross_daemon</code> service (via <code>systemctl daemon-reload ; systemctl start albatross_daemon</code> on Linux or <code>service albatross_daemon start</code> on FreeBSD). Executing <code>albatross-client-local info </code> should return success (exit code 0) and no running unikernel. You may need to be in the albatross group, or change the permissions of the Unix domain socket (<code>/run/albatross/util/vmmd.sock</code> on Linux, <code>/var/run/albatross/util/vmmd.sock</code> on FreeBSD).</p>
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ $ fg # back to albatross-client-local console
$ Ctrl-C # kill that process
</code></pre>
<p>That's it. Albatross has more features, such as block devices, multiple bridges (for management, private networks, ...), restart if the unikernel exited with specific exit code, assignment of a unikernel to a specific CPU. It also has remote command execution and resource limits (you can allow your friends to execute a number of unikernels with limited memory and block storage accessing only some of your bridges). There is a daemon to collect metrics and report them to Grafana (via Telegraf and Influx). MirageOS unikernels also support IPv6, you're not limited to legacy IP.</p>
-urn:uuid:a225bf44-9230-569f-8852-1b5d2132a749Robur Reproducible Builds2022-09-08T09:17:12-00:00canopy2019-09-10T19:40:14-00:00<h1>MirageOS</h1>
+urn:uuid:a225bf44-9230-569f-8852-1b5d2132a749Robur Reproducible Builds2022-11-17T12:59:08-00:00canopy2019-09-10T19:40:14-00:00<h1>MirageOS</h1>
<p>MirageOS is a software suite to build custom-tailored operating systems from (mostly open source) small individual libraries. It has been developed since 2009 at the University of Cambridge, UK and is written in the programming language <a href="/Our%20Work/Technology-Employed#OCaml">OCaml</a>.</p>
<p>It compiles the necessary OCaml libraries into a unikernel - a small operating system, each built for a certain purpose. For each unikernel we can pick from hundreds of permissively licensed open source libraries which implement network protocols, storage on block devices, or interfaces to network devices via the hypervisor or host operating system. As we only put into each one exactly what is needed, each unikernel is fast; instantly booting and, as there is less code base, it is easier to maintain and keep secure.</p>
<p>As an example to see how lines of code compare, here are the number of lines of code needed for different elements of our <a href="/Our%20Work/Projects#Bitcoin%20Pinata">Bitcoin Pinata</a>, measured in thousands of lines of code:</p>