{"id":13509883,"url":"https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite","last_synced_at":"2025-09-27T08:30:31.486Z","repository":{"id":37733252,"uuid":"179326472","full_name":"weaveworks/ignite","owner":"weaveworks","description":"Ignite a Firecracker microVM","archived":true,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2023-12-07T17:28:58.000Z","size":22462,"stargazers_count":3486,"open_issues_count":174,"forks_count":225,"subscribers_count":71,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2024-09-26T22:21:29.483Z","etag":null,"topics":["cloud-native","containers","docker","firecracker","kvm","oci"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://ignite.readthedocs.org","language":"Go","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"apache-2.0","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/weaveworks.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":"CHANGELOG.md","contributing":"CONTRIBUTING.md","funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":"CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md","threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":".github/CODEOWNERS","security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":"docs/roadmap.md","authors":null}},"created_at":"2019-04-03T16:13:43.000Z","updated_at":"2024-09-14T08:32:55.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2024-01-04T19:02:44.969Z","dependency_job_id":"dd21864f-ec7f-4dce-8520-59dc9a9ad71b","html_url":"https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite","commit_stats":{"total_commits":1355,"total_committers":58,"mean_commits":"23.362068965517242","dds":0.6693726937269373,"last_synced_commit":"f60dc65ed25380ea696f817fc44b949dceafd9bb"},"previous_names":[],"tags_count":26,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/weaveworks%2Fignite","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/weaveworks%2Fignite/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/weaveworks%2Fignite/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/weaveworks%2Fignite/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/weaveworks","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/weaveworks/ignite/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":234410449,"owners_count":18828208,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["cloud-native","containers","docker","firecracker","kvm","oci"],"created_at":"2024-08-01T02:01:15.878Z","updated_at":"2025-09-27T08:30:26.408Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/weaveworks.png","language":"Go","readme":"# Deprecated\n\nThis repository is no longer maintained. For a more up-to-date way to manage microVMs, please take a look at [Flintlock](https://github.com/weaveworks-liquidmetal/flintlock).\n\n# Weave Ignite\n\n\u003cimg width=\"300\" align=\"right\" alt=\"Ignite Logo\" src=\"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/weaveworks/ignite/master/docs/logo.png\"\u003e\n\nWeave Ignite is an open source Virtual Machine (VM) manager with a container UX and\nbuilt-in GitOps management.\n\n- Combines [Firecracker MicroVMs](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2018/11/firecracker-lightweight-virtualization-for-serverless-computing/) with Docker /\n [OCI images](https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec) to unify containers and VMs.\n- Works in a [GitOps](https://www.weave.works/blog/what-is-gitops-really) fashion and can\n manage VMs declaratively and automatically like Kubernetes and Terraform.\n\nIgnite is fast and secure because of Firecracker. Firecracker is an\n[open source KVM implementation](https://firecracker-microvm.github.io/) from AWS that is\noptimised for [high security](https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker/blob/master/docs/design.md#threat-containment), isolation, speed and low resource consumption. AWS uses it as the foundation for their\nserverless offerings (AWS Lambda and Fargate) that need to load nearly instantly while also\nkeeping users isolated (multitenancy). Firecracker has proven to be able to run\n[4000 micro-VMs on the same host](https://github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker-demo)!\n\n## What is Ignite?\n\n**Read the announcement blog post here:** \u003chttps://www.weave.works/blog/fire-up-your-vms-with-weave-ignite\u003e\n\nIgnite makes Firecracker easy to use by adopting its developer experience from _containers_.\nWith Ignite, you pick an OCI-compliant image (Docker image) that you want to run as a VM, and then just\nexecute **`ignite run`** instead of **`docker run`**.  There’s no need to use VM-specific tools to build\n`.vdi`, `.vmdk`, or `.qcow2` images, just do a `docker build` from any base image you want\n(e.g. `ubuntu:18.04` from Docker Hub), and add your preferred contents.\n\nWhen you run your OCI image using `ignite run`, Firecracker will boot a new VM in about 125 milliseconds (!) for you\nusing a default 4.19 Linux kernel. If you want to use some other kernel, just specify the `--kernel-image` flag,\npointing to another OCI image containing a kernel at `/boot/vmlinux`, and optionally your preferred modules. Next,\nthe kernel executes `/sbin/init` in the VM, and it all starts up. After this, Ignite connects the VMs to any CNI network,\nintegrating with e.g. Weave Net.\n\nIgnite is a declarative Firecracker microVM administration tool, similar to how Docker manages runC containers.\nIgnite runs VM from OCI images, spins VMs up/down at lightning speed,\nand can manage fleets of VMs efficiently using [GitOps](https://www.weave.works/technologies/gitops/).\n\nThe idea is that Ignite makes Firecracker VMs look like Docker containers.\nNow we can deploy and manage full-blown VM systems just like e.g. Kubernetes workloads.\nThe images used are OCI/Docker images, but instead of running them as containers, it executes\ntheir contents as a real VM with a dedicated kernel and `/sbin/init` as PID 1.\n\nNetworking is set up automatically, the VM gets the same IP as any container on the host would.\n\nAnd Firecracker is **fast**! Building and starting VMs takes just some _fraction of a second_, or\nat most some seconds. With Ignite you can get started with Firecracker in no time!\n\n## Use-cases\n\nWith Ignite, Firecracker is now much more accessible for end users, which means the ecosystem\ncan achieve a next level of momentum due to the easy onboarding path thanks to the docker-like UX.\n\nAlthough Firecracker was designed with serverless workloads in mind, it can equally well boot a\nnormal Linux OS, like Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS, running an init system like `systemd`.\n\nHaving a super-fast way of spinning up a new VM, with a kernel of choice, running an init system\nlike `systemd` allows running system-level applications like the kubelet, which need to “own” the full system.\n\nExample use-cases:\n\n- Set up many secure VMs lightning fast. It's great for testing, CI and ephemeral workloads.\n- Launch and manage entire “app ready” stacks from Git because Ignite supports GitOps!\n- Run even legacy or special apps in lightweight VMs (eg for multi-tenancy, or using weird/edge kernels).\n\nAnd - potentially - we can run a cloud of VMs ‘anywhere’ using Kubernetes for orchestration,\nIgnite for virtualization, GitOps for management, and supporting cloud native tools and APIs.\n\n### Scope\n\nIgnite is different from Kata Containers or gVisor. They don’t let you run real VMs, but only wrap a container in a VM layer providing some kind of security boundary (or sandbox).\n\nIgnite on the other hand lets you run a full-blown VM, easily and super-fast, but with the familiar container UX. This means you can “move down one layer” and start managing your fleet of VMs powering e.g. a Kubernetes cluster, but still package your VMs like containers.\n\n## Installing\n\nPlease check out the [Releases Page](https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite/releases).\n\nHow to install Ignite is covered in [docs/installation.md](docs/installation.md) or on [Read the Docs](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/installation).\n\nGuidance on Cloud Providers' instances that can run Ignite is covered in [docs/cloudprovider.md](docs/cloudprovider.md).\n\n## Getting Started\n\n**WARNING:** In it's `v0.X` series, Ignite is in **alpha**, which means that it might change in backwards-incompatible ways.\n\n[![asciicast](https://asciinema.org/a/252221.svg)](https://asciinema.org/a/252221)\n\nNote: At the moment `ignite` and `ignited` need root privileges on the host to operate\ndue to certain operations (e.g. `mount`). This will change in the future.\n\n```bash\n# Let's run the weaveworks/ignite-ubuntu OCI image as a VM\n# Use 2 vCPUs and 1GB of RAM, enable automatic SSH access and name it my-vm\nignite run weaveworks/ignite-ubuntu \\\n    --cpus 2 \\\n    --memory 1GB \\\n    --ssh \\\n    --name my-vm\n\n# List running VMs\nignite ps\n\n# List Docker (OCI) and kernel images imported into Ignite\nignite images\nignite kernels\n\n# Get the boot logs of the VM\nignite logs my-vm\n\n# SSH into the VM\nignite ssh my-vm\n\n# Inside the VM you can check that the kernel version is different, and the IP address came from the container\n# Also the memory is limited to what you specify, as well as the vCPUs\n\u003e uname -a\n\u003e ip addr\n\u003e free -m\n\u003e cat /proc/cpuinfo\n\n# Rebooting the VM tells Firecracker to shut it down\n\u003e reboot\n\n# Cleanup\nignite rm my-vm\n```\n\nFor a walkthrough of how to use Ignite, go to [**docs/usage.md**](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage).\n\n## Getting Started the GitOps way\n\nIgnite is a “GitOps-first” project, GitOps is supported out of the box using the `ignited gitops` command.\nPreviously this was integrated as `ignite gitops`, but this functionality has now moved to `ignited`,\nIgnite's upcoming daemon binary.\n\nIn Git you declaratively store the desired state of a set of VMs you want to manage.\n`ignited gitops` reconciles the state from Git, and applies the desired changes as state is updated in the repo.\nIt also commits and pushes any local changes/additions to the managed VMs back to the repository.\n\nThis can then be automated, tracked for correctness, and managed at scale - [just some of the benefits of GitOps](https://www.weave.works/technologies/gitops/).\n\nThe workflow is simply this:\n\n- Run `ignited gitops [repo]`, where repo is an **SSH url** to your Git repo\n- Create a file with the VM specification, specifying how much vCPUs, RAM, disk, etc. you’d like for the VM\n- Run `git push` and see your VM start on the host\n\nSee it in action! (Note: The screencast is from an older version which differs somewhat)\n\n[![asciicast](https://asciinema.org/a/255797.svg)](https://asciinema.org/a/255797)\n\nFor the complete guide, see [docs/gitops.md](docs/gitops.md).\n\n### Awesome Ignite\n\nWant to see how awesome Ignite is?\n\nTake a look at the [awesome-ignite](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/awesome) page!\n\n### Documentation\n\nPlease refer to the following documents powered by [Read the Docs](https://readthedocs.io/):\n\n- **[Documentation Page](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable)**\n- [Installing Ignite](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/installation)\n- [Scope and Dependencies](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/dependencies)\n- [Getting Started Walkthrough](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/usage)\n- [Declaratively Controlling Ignite](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/declarative-config)\n- [Networking and Multi-Node](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/networking)\n- [CLI Reference](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/cli/ignite/)\n- [API Reference](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/api/)\n\n### Frequently Asked Questions\n\nSee the [FAQ.md](https://ignite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/FAQ) document.\n\n### Architecture\n\n![docs/architecture.png](docs/architecture.png)\n\nWant to know how Ignite really works under the hood?\nCheck out this [TGIK](https://github.com/heptio/tgik) session from [Joe Beda](https://twitter.com/jbeda) about it:\n\n[![TGIK 082](https://img.youtube.com/vi/aq-wlslJ5MQ/0.jpg)](https://youtu.be/aq-wlslJ5MQ)\n\n### Base images and kernels\n\nA _base image_ is an OCI-compliant image containing some operating system (e.g. Ubuntu).\nYou can follow normal `docker build` patterns for customizing your VM's rootfs.\n\nA _kernel image_ is an OCI-compliant image containing a `/boot/vmlinux` (an uncompressed kernel)\nexecutable (can be a symlink). You can also put supporting kernel modules in `/lib/modules`\nif needed. You can mix and match any kernel and any base image to create a VM.\n\nAs the upstream `centos:7` and `ubuntu:18.04` images from Docker Hub don't\nhave all the utilities and packages you'd expect in a VM (e.g. an init system), we have packaged some\nreference base images and a sample kernel image to get started quickly.\n\nYou can use the following pre-built images with Ignite. They are built on the normal Docker Hub images,\nbut add `systemd`, `openssh`, and similar utilities.\n\n#### Base Images\n\n- [Ubuntu 18.04 Dockerfile](images/ubuntu/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-ubuntu`)\n- [CentOS 7 Dockerfile](images/centos/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-centos`)\n- [Amazon Linux 2 Dockerfile](images/amazonlinux/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-amazonlinux`)\n- [The Firecracker Team's Alpine Image](images/alpine/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-alpine`)\n\nThese prebuilt images can be given to `ignite run` directly.\n\n#### Kernel Images\n\n- [Default Kernel Image](images/kernel/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-kernel`)\n- [The Firecracker Team's Kernel](images/amazon-kernel/Dockerfile) (`weaveworks/ignite-amazon-kernel`)\n\n#### Tutorials\n\n- [Guide: Run a HA Kubernetes cluster with Ignite and kubeadm](images/kubeadm) (`weaveworks/ignite-kubeadm`)\n- [Guide: Run a set of Ignite VMs with Footloose](docs/footloose.md)\n\n## Contributing\n\nPlease see [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) and our [Code Of Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).\n\nOther interesting resources include:\n\n- [The issue tracker](https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite/issues)\n- [The list of milestones](https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite/milestones)\n- [The Roadmap](docs/roadmap.md)\n- [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md)\n\n## Getting Help\n\nIf you have any questions about, feedback for or problems with `ignite`:\n\n- Invite yourself to the \u003ca href=\"https://slack.weave.works/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eWeave Users Slack\u003c/a\u003e.\n- Ask a question on the [#ignite](https://weave-community.slack.com/messages/ignite/) slack channel.\n- [File an issue](https://github.com/weaveworks/ignite/issues/new).\n- Join [weaveworks-ignite@googlegroups.com](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/weaveworks-ignite) for calendar invites to calls and edit access to community documents.\n- Join our [developer meetings](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fv8_WD6qXfvlIq7Bb5raCGyBvc42dNF-l8uaoZzoUYI/edit).\n\nYour feedback is always welcome!\n\n## Maintainers\n\n- Leigh Capili, [@stealthybox](https://github.com/stealthybox)\n- Chanwit Kaewkasi, [@chanwit](https://github.com/chanwit)\n- Sunny, [@darkowlzz](https://github.com/darkowlzz)\n\n## License\n\n[Apache 2.0](LICENSE)\n","funding_links":[],"categories":["Automation \u0026 Orchestration","Go","docker","Uncategorized","Runtime","Tools"],"sub_categories":["Uncategorized"],"project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fweaveworks%2Fignite","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fweaveworks%2Fignite","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fweaveworks%2Fignite/lists"}