Firecracker Dev Machine Setup (GCP)

VM on Google Compute Engine (GCE) supports nested virtualisation, unlike AWS, and allows to run KVM. We can create a VM on GCE to run and test Firecracker microVM.

Here are the steps

1. Setup GCP Project and Zone

   FC_PROJECT=your_name-firecracker
   FC_REGION=us-east1
   FC_ZONE=us-east1-b
   

   gcloud config set project ${FC_PROJECT}
   gcloud config set compute/region ${FC_REGION}
   gcloud config set compute/zone ${FC_ZONE}
   

2. Create a VM image (Machine Image) able to run KVM

   FC_VDISK=disk-ub22
   FC_IMAGE=ub22-nested-kvm
   
   gcloud compute disks create ${FC_VDISK} \
     --image-project ubuntu-os-cloud \
     --image-family ubuntu-2204-lts
   
   gcloud compute images create ${FC_IMAGE} \
     --source-disk ${FC_VDISK} \
     --source-disk-zone ${FC_ZONE} \
     --licenses "https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/vm-options/global/licenses/enable-vmx"
   

3. Create the VM

   FC_VM=firecracker-vm
   
   gcloud compute instances create ${FC_VM} \
     --zone ${FC_ZONE} \
     --image ${FC_IMAGE}
   

4. Connect to the VM via SSH.

   gcloud compute ssh ${FC_VM}
   

5. Verify that VMX is enabled, enable KVM

   $ grep -cw vmx /proc/cpuinfo
   1
   $ sudo setfacl -m u:${USER}:rw /dev/kvm
   $ [ -r /dev/kvm ] && [ -w /dev/kvm ] && echo "OK" || echo "FAIL"
   OK