Boot a Firecracker microVM from a kernel and root filesystem via the Firecracker API (boot-source, drives, network, InstanceStart)
domain: firecracker-microvm.github.io · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Start Firecracker against a unix socket: firecracker --api-sock /tmp/firecracker.socket --enable-pci (--enable-pci uses PCI VirtIO transport instead of legacy MMIO for higher throughput/lower latency)
Configure the boot source: curl -X PUT --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -d '{"kernel_image_path":"./vmlinux","boot_args":"console=ttyS0 reboot=k panic=1"}' http://localhost/boot-source
Attach the root filesystem as a block device: curl -X PUT --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -d '{"drive_id":"rootfs","path_on_host":"./rootfs.ext4","is_root_device":true,"is_read_only":false}' http://localhost/drives/rootfs
Add a network interface backed by a host TAP: create the TAP (ip tuntap add dev tap0 mode tap; ip addr add 172.16.0.1/30 dev tap0; ip link set tap0 up), enable ip_forward + iptables MASQUERADE for outbound NAT
Attach the interface: curl -X PUT --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -d '{"iface_id":"net1","guest_mac":"06:00:AC:10:00:02","host_dev_name":"tap0"}' http://localhost/network-interfaces/net1
API requests are handled asynchronously, so wait for config to settle, then start: sleep 0.015; curl -X PUT --unix-socket /tmp/firecracker.socket -d '{"action_type":"InstanceStart"}' http://localhost/actions
Inside the guest set the default route via the host TAP IP and add DNS: ip route add default via 172.16.0.1 dev eth0; echo 'nameserver 8.8.8.8' > /etc/resolv.conf
Known gotchas
Firecracker API requests are async; all configuration (boot-source, drives, network) must be set before InstanceStart or you get races
Kernel/rootfs paths are read on the host; under the jailer those resources must exist inside the jail/chroot
On aarch64 add keep_bootcon to boot_args (console=ttyS0 reboot=k panic=1 keep_bootcon)
glibc resolves A/AAAA in parallel and an AAAA query can stall on host NAT, adding seconds per DNS lookup; add 'options single-request-reopen' to resolv.conf
--enable-pci is optional; without it Firecracker uses the legacy MMIO VirtIO transport
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