# youki: A container runtime in Rust
[](https://discord.gg/zHnyXKSQFD)
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[](https://codecov.io/gh/containers/youki)
youki is an implementation of the [OCI runtime-spec](https://github.com/opencontainers/runtime-spec) in Rust, similar to [runc](https://github.com/opencontainers/runc).
Your ideas are welcome [here](https://github.com/containers/youki/issues/10).
# About the name
youki is pronounced as /joʊki/ or yoh-key.
youki is named after the Japanese word 'youki', which means 'a container'. In Japanese language, youki also means 'cheerful', 'merry', or 'hilarious'.
# Motivation
Here is why we are writing a new container runtime in Rust.
- Rust is one of the best languages to implement the oci-runtime spec. Many very nice container tools are currently written in Go. However, the container runtime requires the use of system calls, which requires a bit of special handling when implemented in Go. This is too tricky (e.g. _namespaces(7)_, _fork(2)_); with Rust, it's not that tricky. And, unlike in C, Rust provides the benefit of memory safety. While Rust is not yet a major player in the container field, it has the potential to contribute a lot: something this project attempts to exemplify.
- youki has the potential to be faster and use less memory than runc, and therefore work in environments with tight memory usage requirements. Here is a simple benchmark of a container from creation to deletion.
| Runtime | Time (mean ± σ) | Range (min … max) |
| :-----: | :-----------------: | :-----------------: |
| youki | 198.4 ms ± 52.1 ms | 97.2 ms … 296.1 ms |
| runc | 352.3 ms ± 53.3 ms | 248.3 ms … 772.2 ms |
| crun | 153.5 ms ± 21.6 ms | 80.9 ms … 196.6 ms |
Details about the benchmark
- A command used for the benchmark
```console
$ hyperfine --prepare 'sudo sync; echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches' --warmup 10 --min-runs 100 'sudo ./youki create -b tutorial a && sudo ./youki start a && sudo ./youki delete -f a'
```
- Environment
```console
$ ./youki info
Version 0.0.1
Kernel-Release 5.11.0-41-generic
Kernel-Version #45-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 5 11:37:01 UTC 2021
Architecture x86_64
Operating System Ubuntu 21.04
Cores 12
Total Memory 32025
Cgroup setup hybrid
Cgroup mounts
blkio /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio
cpu /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct
cpuacct /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct
cpuset /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
devices /sys/fs/cgroup/devices
freezer /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer
hugetlb /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb
memory /sys/fs/cgroup/memory
net_cls /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio
net_prio /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio
perf_event /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event
pids /sys/fs/cgroup/pids
unified /sys/fs/cgroup/unified
CGroup v2 controllers
cpu detached
cpuset detached
hugetlb detached
io detached
memory detached
pids detached
device attached
Namespaces enabled
mount enabled
uts enabled
ipc enabled
user enabled
pid enabled
network enabled
cgroup enabled
$ ./youki --version
youki version 0.0.1
commit: 0.0.1-0-0be33bf
$ runc -v
runc version 1.0.0-rc93
commit: 12644e614e25b05da6fd08a38ffa0cfe1903fdec
spec: 1.0.2-dev
go: go1.13.15
libseccomp: 2.5.1
$ crun --version
crun version 0.19.1.45-4cc7
commit: 4cc7fa1124cce75dc26e12186d9cbeabded2b710
spec: 1.0.0
+SYSTEMD +SELINUX +APPARMOR +CAP +SECCOMP +EBPF +CRIU +YAJL
```
- The development of [railcar](https://github.com/oracle/railcar) has been suspended. This project was very nice but is no longer being developed. This project is inspired by it.
- I have fun implementing this. In fact, this may be the most important.
# Related project
- [containers/oci-spec-rs](https://github.com/containers/oci-spec-rs) - OCI Runtime and Image Spec in Rust
# Status of youki
youki is not at the practical stage yet. However, it is getting closer to practical use, running with docker and passing all the default tests provided by [opencontainers/runtime-tools](https://github.com/opencontainers/runtime-tools).
| Feature | Description | State |
|:---------------------:|:-----------------------------------------------:| :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
| Containerd | Running via Containerd | ✅ |
| Docker | Running via Docker | ✅ |
| Podman | Running via Podman | ✅ |
| pivot_root | Change the root directory | ✅ |
| Mounts | Mount files and directories to container | ✅ |
| Namespaces | Isolation of various resources | ✅ |
| Capabilities | Limiting root privileges | ✅ |
| Cgroups v1 | Resource limitations, etc | ✅ |
| Cgroups v2 | Improved version of v1 | Support is complete except for devices. WIP on [#230](https://github.com/containers/youki/issues/230) |
| Systemd cgroup driver | Setting up a cgroup using systemd | ✅ |
| Seccomp | Filtering system calls | ✅ |
| Hooks | Add custom processing during container creation | ✅ |
| Rootless | Running a container without root privileges | ✅ |
| OCI Compliance | Compliance with OCI Runtime Spec | ✅ 50 out of 50 test cases passing |
| CRIU Integration | Functionality to checkpoint/restore containers | Initial checkpoint support as described in [#641](https://github.com/containers/youki/pull/641) |
# Design and implementation of youki
The User and Developer Documentation for youki is hosted at [https://containers.github.io/youki/](https://containers.github.io/youki/)
# Getting Started
Local build is only supported on Linux.
For other platforms, please use the [Vagrantfile](#setting-up-vagrant) that we have prepared. You can also spin up a fully preconfigured development environment in the cloud with gitpod.
[](https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/containers/youki)
## Requires
- Rust(See [here](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install)), edition 2021
- linux kernel ≥ 5.3
## Dependencies
### Debian, Ubuntu and related distributions
```console
$ sudo apt-get install \
pkg-config \
libsystemd-dev \
libdbus-glib-1-dev \
build-essential \
libelf-dev \
libseccomp-dev \
libclang-dev \
libssl-dev
```
### Fedora, CentOS, RHEL and related distributions
```console
$ sudo dnf install \
pkg-config \
systemd-devel \
dbus-devel \
elfutils-libelf-devel \
libseccomp-devel \
clang-devel \
openssl-devel
```
## Build
```console
$ git clone git@github.com:containers/youki.git
$ cd youki
$ make youki-dev # or youki-release
$ ./youki -h # you can get information about youki command
```
## Tutorial
### Requires
- Docker(See [here](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install))
### Create and run a container
Let's try to run a container that executes `sleep 30` with youki. This tutorial may need root permission.
```console
$ git clone git@github.com:containers/youki.git
$ cd youki
$ make youki-dev # or youki-release
$ mkdir -p tutorial/rootfs
$ cd tutorial
# use docker to export busybox into the rootfs directory
$ docker export $(docker create busybox) | tar -C rootfs -xvf -
```
Then, we need to prepare a configuration file. This file contains metadata and specs for a container, such as the process to run, environment variables to inject, sandboxing features to use, etc.
```console
$ ../youki spec # will generate a spec file named config.json
```
We can edit the `config.json` to add customized behaviors for container. Here, we modify the `process` field to run `sleep 30`.
```json
"process": {
...
"args": [
"sleep", "30"
],
...
}
```
Then we can explore the lifecycle of a container:
```console
$ cd .. # go back to the repository root
$ sudo ./youki create -b tutorial tutorial_container # create a container with name `tutorial_container`
$ sudo ./youki state tutorial_container # you can see the state the container is `created`
$ sudo ./youki start tutorial_container # start the container
$ sudo ./youki list # will show the list of containers, the container is `running`
$ sudo ./youki delete tutorial_container # delete the container
```
Change the command to be executed in `config.json` and try something other than `sleep 30`.
### Rootless container
`youki` provides the ability to run containers as non-root user([rootless mode](https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/)). To run a container in rootless mode, we need to add some extra options in `config.json`, other steps are same with above:
```console
$ mkdir -p tutorial/rootfs
$ cd tutorial
# use docker to export busybox into the rootfs directory
$ docker export $(docker create busybox) | tar -C rootfs -xvf -
$ ../youki spec --rootless # will generate a spec file named config.json with rootless mode
## Modify the `args` field as you like
$ ../youki run rootless-container # will create and run a container with rootless mode
```
## Usage
Start the docker daemon.
```console
$ dockerd --experimental --add-runtime="youki=$(pwd)/youki"
```
If you get an error like the below, that means your normal Docker daemon is running, and it needs to be stopped. Do that with your init system (i.e., with systemd, run `systemctl stop docker`, as root if necessary).
```
failed to start daemon: pid file found, ensure docker is not running or delete /var/run/docker.pid
```
Now repeat the command, which should start the docker daemon.
You can use youki in a different terminal to start the container.
```console
$ docker run -it --rm --runtime youki busybox
```
Afterwards, you can close the docker daemon process in other the other terminal. To restart normal docker daemon (if you had stopped it before), run:
```console
$ systemctl start docker # might need root permission
```
### Integration Tests
Go and node-tap are required to run integration tests. See the [opencontainers/runtime-tools](https://github.com/opencontainers/runtime-tools) README for details.
```console
$ git submodule update --init --recursive
$ make oci-tests
```
### Setting up Vagrant
You can try youki on platforms other than Linux by using the Vagrantfile we have prepared. We have prepared two environments for vagrant, namely rootless mode and rootful mode
```console
$ git clone git@github.com:containers/youki.git
$ cd youki
# If you want to develop in rootless mode, and this is the default mode
$ vagrant up
$ vagrant ssh
# or if you want to develop in rootful mode
$ VAGRANT_VAGRANTFILE=Vagrantfile.root vagrant up
$ VAGRANT_VAGRANTFILE=Vagrantfile.root vagrant ssh
# in virtual machine
$ cd youki
$ make youki-dev # or youki-release
```
# Community
We also have an active [Discord](https://discord.gg/h7R3HgWUct) if you'd like to come and chat with us.
# Contribution
This project welcomes your PR and issues.
For example, refactoring, adding features, correcting English, etc.
If you need any help, you can contact me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/utam0k).
Thanks to all the people who already contributed!
