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Httpreply on Unikraft

This application starts an Httpreply web server with Unikraft. Follow the instructions below to set up, configure, build and run Httpreply.

To get started immediately, you can use Unikraft's companion command-line companion tool, kraft. Start by running the interactive installer:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://get.kraftkit.sh | sudo sh

Once installed, clone this repository and run kraft build:

git clone https://github.com/unikraft/app-httpreply httpreply
cd httpreply/
kraft build

This will guide you through an interactive build process where you can select one of the available targets (architecture/platform combinations). Otherwise, we recommend building for qemu/x86_64 like so:

kraft build --plat qemu --arch x86_64

Once built, you can instantiate the unikernel via:

kraft run --plat qemu --arch x86_64 -p 8123:8123

If you don't have KVM support (such as when running inside a virtual machine), pass the -W option to kraft run to disable virtualization support:

kraft run -W --plat qemu --arch x86_64 -p 8123:8123

When left without the --plat / --arch argument, you'll be queried for the desired target from the list.

To use the Unikraft instance of Httpreply, open another console and use the wget command below to query the server:

curl localhost:8123

Work with the Basic Build & Run Toolchain (Advanced)

You can set up, configure, build and run the application from grounds up, without using the companion tool kraft.

Quick Setup (aka TLDR)

For a quick setup, run the commands below. Note that you still need to install the requirements.

For building and running everything for x86_64, follow the steps below:

git clone https://github.com/unikraft/app-httpreply httpreply
cd httpreply/
./scripts/setup.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unikraft/app-testing/staging/scripts/generate.py -O scripts/generate.py
chmod a+x scripts/generate.py
./scripts/generate.py
./scripts/build/make-qemu-x86_64.sh
./scripts/run/qemu-x86_64.sh

This will configure, build and run the httpreply application. You can see how to test it in the running section.

To close the QEMU httpreply server, use the Ctrl+a x keyboard shortcut; that is press the Ctrl and a keys at the same time and then, separately, press the x key.

The same can be done for AArch64, by running the commands below:

git clone https://github.com/unikraft/app-httpreply httpreply
cd httpreply/
./scripts/setup.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unikraft/app-testing/staging/scripts/generate.py -O scripts/generate.py
chmod a+x scripts/generate.py
./scripts/generate.py
./scripts/build/make-qemu-arm64.sh
./scripts/run/qemu-arm64.sh

Similar to the x86_64 build, this will start the httpreply server. Information about every step is detailed below.

Requirements

In order to set up, configure, build and run Httpreply on Unikraft, the following packages are required:

• build-essential / base-devel / @development-tools (the meta-package that includes make, gcc and other development-related packages)
• sudo
• flex
• bison
• git
• wget
• uuid-runtime
• qemu-system-x86
• qemu-system-arm
• qemu-kvm
• sgabios
• gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu

GCC >= 8 is required to build Httpreply on Unikraft.

On Ubuntu/Debian or other apt-based distributions, run the following command to install the requirements:

sudo apt install -y --no-install-recommends \
  build-essential \
  sudo \
  gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu \
  libncurses-dev \
  libyaml-dev \
  flex \
  bison \
  git \
  wget \
  uuid-runtime \
  qemu-kvm \
  qemu-system-x86 \
  qemu-system-arm \
  sgabios

Running Httpreply Unikraft with QEMU requires networking support. For this to work properly a specific configuration must be enabled for QEMU. Run the commands below to enable that configuration (for the network bridge to work):

sudo mkdir /etc/qemu/
echo "allow all" | sudo tee /etc/qemu/bridge.conf

Set Up

The following repositories are required for Httpreply:

• The application repository (this repository): app-httpreply
• The Unikraft core repository: unikraft
• Library repositories:
  • The networking stack library: lib-lwip

Follow the steps below for the setup:

1. First clone the app-httpreply repository in the httpreply/ directory:

   git clone https://github.com/unikraft/app-httpreply httpreply

   Enter the httpreply/ directory:

   cd httpreply/
   
   ls -F

   This will print the contents of the repository:

   [...] README.md  defconfigs/  kraft.cloud.yaml  kraft.yaml  main.c  scripts/
   

2. While inside the httpreply/ directory, clone all required repositories by using the setup.sh script:

   ./scripts/setup.sh

3. Use the tree command to inspect the contents of the workdir/ directory:

   tree -F -L 2 workdir/

   The layout of the workdir/ directory should look something like this:

   workdir/
   |-- libs/
   |   `-- lwip/
   `-- unikraft/
       |-- arch/
       |-- Config.uk
       |-- CONTRIBUTING.md
       |-- COPYING.md
       |-- include/
       |-- lib/
       |-- Makefile
       |-- Makefile.uk
       |-- plat/
       |-- README.md
       |-- support/
       `-- version.mk
   
   10 directories, 7 files
   

Scripted Building and Running

To make it easier to build, run and test different configurations, the repository provides a set of scripts that do everything required. These are scripts used for building different configurations of the httpreply server and for running these with all the requirements behind the scenes: creating network configurations, setting up archives etc.

First of all, grab the generate.py script and place it in the scripts/ directory by running:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unikraft/app-testing/staging/scripts/generate.py -O scripts/generate.py
chmod a+x scripts/generate.py

Now, run the generate.py script. You must run it from the root directory of this repository:

./scripts/generate.py

The scripts (as shell scripts) are now generated in scripts/build/ and scripts/run/:

scripts//
|-- build/
|   |-- kraft-fc-arm64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-fc-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-qemu-arm64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-qemu-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- make-fc-arm64.sh*
|   |-- make-fc-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- make-qemu-arm64.sh*
|   `-- make-qemu-x86_64.sh*
|-- generate.py*
|-- run/
|   |-- fc-arm64.json
|   |-- fc-arm64.sh*
|   |-- fc-x86_64.json
|   |-- fc-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-fc-arm64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-fc-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-qemu-arm64.sh*
|   |-- kraft-qemu-x86_64.sh*
|   |-- qemu-arm64.sh*
|   `-- qemu-x86_64.sh*
|-- run.yaml
`-- setup.sh*

They are shell scripts, so you can use an editor or a text viewer to check their contents:

cat scripts/run/fc-x86_64.sh

Now, invoke each script to build and run the application. A sample build and run set of commands is:

./scripts/build/make-qemu-x86_64.sh
./scripts/run/qemu-x86_64.sh

Note that Firecracker requires KVM (i.e. hardware virtualization) support. If you are using a virtual machine, you won't be able to run with Firecracker, only with QEMU in emulated mode.

Detailed Steps

Configure

Configuring, building and running a Unikraft application depends on our choice of platform and architecture. Currently, supported platforms are QEMU (KVM), Xen and linuxu. QEMU (KVM) is known to be working, so we focus on that.

Supported architectures are x86_64 and AArch64.

Use the corresponding the configuration files (defconfigs/*), according to your choice of platform and architecture.

QEMU x86_64

Use the defconfigs/qemu-x86_64 configuration file together with make defconfig to create the configuration file:

UK_DEFCONFIG=$(pwd)/defconfigs/qemu-x86_64 make defconfig

This results in the creation of the .config file:

ls .config
.config

The .config file will be used in the build step.

QEMU AArch64

Use the defconfigs/qemu-arm64 configuration file together with make defconfig to create the configuration file:

UK_DEFCONFIG=$(pwd)/defconfigs/qemu-arm64 make defconfig

Similar to the x86_64 configuration, this results in the creation of the .config file that will be used in the build step.

Build

Building uses as input the .config file from above, and results in a unikernel image as output. The unikernel output image, together with intermediary build files, are stored in the build/ directory.

Clean Up

Before starting a build on a different platform or architecture, you must clean up the build output. This may also be required in case of a new configuration.

Cleaning up is done with 3 possible commands:

• make clean: cleans all actual build output files (binary files, including the unikernel image)
• make properclean: removes the entire build/ directory
• make distclean: removes the entire build/ directory and the .config file

Typically, you would use make properclean to remove all build artifacts, but keep the configuration file.

QEMU x86_64

Building for QEMU x86_64 assumes you did the QEMU x86_64 configuration step above. Build the Unikraft Httpreply image for QEMU x86_64 by using the command below:

make -j $(nproc)

This will print a list of files that are generated by the build system.

[...]
  LD      httpreply_qemu-x86_64.dbg
  UKBI    httpreply_qemu-x86_64.dbg.bootinfo
  SCSTRIP httpreply_qemu-x86_64
  GZ      httpreply_qemu-x86_64.gz
make[1]: Leaving directory 'httpreply/workdir/unikraft'

At the end of the build command, the httpreply-x86_64 unikernel image is generated. This image is to be used in the run step.

QEMU AArch64

If you had configured and build a unikernel image for another platform or architecture (such as x86_64) before, then:

1. Do a cleanup step with make properclean.

2. Configure for QEMU AAarch64, as shown above.

3. Follow the instructions below to build for QEMU AArch64.

Building for QEMU AArch64 assumes you did the QEMU AArch64 configuration step above. Build the Unikraft Httpreply image for QEMU AArch64 by using the same command as for x86_64:

make -j $(nproc)

This will print a list of files that are generated by the build system.

[...]
  LD      httpreply_qemu-arm64.dbg
  UKBI    httpreply_qemu-arm64.dbg.bootinfo
  SCSTRIP httpreply_qemu-arm64
  GZ      httpreply_qemu-arm64.gz
make[1]: Leaving directory 'httpreply/workdir/unikraft'

Similarly to x86_64, at the end of the build command, the httpreply-arm64 unikernel image is generated. This image is to be used in the run step.

Run

QEMU x86_64

To run the QEMU x86_64 build, use qemu-x86_64.sh:

./scripts/generate.py
./scripts/run/qemu-x86_64.sh

This will start the httpreply server:

1: Set IPv4 address 172.44.0.2 mask 255.255.255.0 gw 172.44.0.1
en1: Added
en1: Interface is up
Powered by
o.   .o       _ _               __ _
Oo   Oo  ___ (_) | __ __  __ _ ' _) :_
oO   oO ' _ `| | |/ /  _)' _` | |_|  _)
oOo oOO| | | | |   (| | | (_) |  _) :_
 OoOoO ._, ._:_:_,\_._,  .__,_:_, \___)
                  Atlas 0.13.1~5eb820bd
Listening on port 8123...

The server listens for connections on the 172.44.0.2 address advertised. A web client (such as curl) is required to query the server.

Open another console and use the curl command:

curl 172.44.0.2:8123

This will show the response that the application sends:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"><html><head><title>It works!</title></head><body><h1>It works!</h1><p><p>This is only a test.</p></body></html>

To close the QEMU Nginx server, use the Ctrl+a x keyboard shortcut; that is press the Ctrl and a keys at the same time and then, separately, press the x key.

QEMU AArch64

To run the AArch64 build, use qemu-arm64.sh:

./scripts/generate.py
./scripts/run/qemu-arm64.sh

This will start the httpreply server, same as above. Follow the same steps as above to qeury / test / close the running instance of httpreply with Unikraft.

Building and Running with Firecracker

Firecracker is a lightweight VMM (virtual machine manager) that can be used as more efficient alternative to QEMU.

Configure and build commands are similar to a QEMU-based build.

./scripts/build/make-fc-x86_64.sh

To use Firecraker, you need to download a Firecracker release. You can use the commands below to make the firecracker-x86_64 executable from release v1.4.0 available globally in the command line:

cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/releases/download/v1.4.0/firecracker-v1.4.0-x86_64.tgz
tar xzf firecracker-v1.4.0-x86_64.tgz 
sudo cp release-v1.4.0-x86_64/firecracker-v1.4.0-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/firecracker-x86_64

To run a unikernel image, you need to configure a JSON file. This is the scripts/run/fc-x86_64.json file. This configuration file is uses as part of the run command:

./scripts/run/fc-x86_64.sh

Same as running with QEMU, the application will start:

1: Set IPv4 address 172.44.0.2 mask 255.255.255.0 gw 172.44.0.1
en1: Added
en1: Interface is up
Powered by
o.   .o       _ _               __ _
Oo   Oo  ___ (_) | __ __  __ _ ' _) :_
oO   oO ' _ `| | |/ /  _)' _` | |_|  _)
oOo oOO| | | | |   (| | | (_) |  _) :_
 OoOoO ._, ._:_:_,\_._,  .__,_:_, \___)
                  Atlas 0.13.1~5eb820bd
Listening on port 8123...

This will start the httpreply server, same as above. Follow the same steps as above to qeury / test / close the running instance of httpreply with Unikraft.