Running MicroVMs using Multipass

Just wondering if it is possible to run microvm’s using Multipass. I am using Multipass on macOS and have seen projects like slim (https://github.com/ottomatica/slim) that uses hyperkit to launch microvms.

Considering that the default driver of Multipass on macOS is hyperkit, is it currently possible in any way to make multipass boot vm’s as microvm’s. I am looking for faster boot times here.

Hi @thejranjan, thanks for the suggestion.

One of the goals of Multipass is to be fully cross platform. We wouldn’t be able to support this fully across the platforms we support, so that’d be a problem for us. Another is that updating the out-of-image kernel/initramfs would be tricky.

We’re all for shorter boot times, but the bulk of boot time is not in the bootloader or BIOS, but rather the OS itself. And as you strip the OS image, it becomes less useful to the general user.

Ubuntu does produce minimal images that are bare bones Ubuntu OS, but those are meant more as non-interactive cloud nodes, not intended for users. These would be easier to integrate for us, if there’s interest.

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