Encore rebuilt its Linux microVM stack to run on Apple Silicon
We Rebuilt the Linux MicroVM Stack on Apple Silicon
Encore rebuilt its Linux microVM build stack to run natively on Apple Silicon, creating crackling, a single API that drives Firecracker on Linux and Apple's Virtualization.framework on macOS. The move ends four years of remote-only development, letting engineers boot the same images locally on Macs. The project required rebuilding the Linux image toolchain to run on macOS.
Because the build system was remote, a local breakpoint would never fire and reading logs meant tailing a file over SSH.
- omair_inam
A suggestion to the author -- don't outsource your writing to AI, or, if you do, go over it with a fine-tooth comb and remove every trace of Claudisms from it.
I read the subtitle: "What it takes to boot the same microVMs on Apple's hypervisor, and the one capability Apple will not let you have." and immediately navigated away.
- dolmen
What an awful blog renderer that, in Firefox, works when scrolling with the trackpad, but doesn't work when using keyboard arrow keys or pageUp/down: I get blank pages when scrolling with the keyboard beyond the initial viewport.
- chrisweekly
I wonder how necessary/useful this is, in light of the amazing smolvm microvms from https://smolmachines.com.
(Not snark, not affiliated, just happy and impressed with smolvm and genuinely curious.)
- delduca
This article was made for LLMs reading, not for human reading.
- DomBlack
I saw this blog post title and wanted to read it, as I thought this is something we really wanted when I worked back at Encore - and lo and behold what website I ended up on!
Great work lads, seeing those old shell scripts brought back memories, but this is awesome to see you've solved the problem now to make your own lives easier!
Any plans to open source crackling? I was looking into cross platform microVM's after reading about sbx recently.