smolBSD: boots faster than its shadow!
K.3.201 | Day 1 | 15:50 - 16:15 | Speakers: Emile 'iMil' Heitor, Pierre Pronchery
Abstract
NetBSD 11 introduces a new MICROVM kernel that can boot in QEMU in about 10 ms, thanks to PVH support, MMIO VirtIO devices, and various low-level optimisations. Building on this foundation, we created smolBSD, a meta-OS and microVM generator that assembles tiny, versatile and fully isolated services using the MICROVM kernel plus selected pieces from NetBSD and pkgsrc. Recent work by Pierre “khorben” Pronchery enables even faster startup by embedding the root filesystem as an initrd-style RAMdisk. This talk presents smolBSD’s design, capabilities, and how it enables ultra-fast, minimal, and reproducible micro-services.
Speakers
Emile `iMil' Heitor was once an electronic music DJ who's been kidnapped and brainwashed by Open Source ninjas nearly 30 years ago, leaving him very little brain space to compose and party; instead, he became a Free Software evangelist, Software and Infrastructure designer, perversely joining both his work with his passion so that he's constantly possessed by the need of learning more and cursed with the impression of knowing nothing.
Entrepreneur, IT-Security Consultant, Open Source enthusiast, FreeBSD & NetBSD developer, OSDev hobbyist
Pierre Pronchery is a NetBSD developer since 2012, and currently serving on the Board of Directors for the NetBSD Foundation. He regularly contributes to different sides of the project, from kernel patches to software packaging in pkgsrc, or contributing to public events. His passion for Operating System development took shape with the DeforaOS Project since 2001, which led him to research the Future Internet as well. As founder and CEO of Defora Networks GmbH in Germany, he performs IT-Security consulting and development services around all of these projects, most notably with the FreeBSD Foundation since 2023.
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