bsdkrun (Ruby SDK)

A Ruby SDK for bsdkrun — a Firecracker-style microVM launcher for BSD, Linux, and unikernel guests on macOS and Linux, built on libkrun. Boot and drive microVMs programmatically, inspired by the Vercel and Deno Sandbox SDKs.

The SDK shells out to the bsdkrun binary, so it has zero runtime dependencies — just the Ruby standard library (open3, json, pathname).

require "bsdkrun"

box = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "linux", image: "alpine")

# exec argv directly, with env / stdin / a PTY / a working dir:
puts box.exec(["uname", "-a"]).text
box.exec(["apk", "add", "curl"], throw_on_error: true)
box.run_command("curl", ["-fsSL", "https://example.com"])

box.stop

Install

gem install bsdkrun

Or in a Gemfile:

gem "bsdkrun"

The bsdkrun binary

You need the bsdkrun binary itself. The SDK finds it via, in order:

1. Bsdkrun.binary_path = "/path/to/bsdkrun"
2. the BSDKRUN_BIN environment variable
3. bsdkrun on your PATH
4. an in-repo target/release/bsdkrun or target/debug/bsdkrun build

See the bsdkrun README for installing the binary (Homebrew on macOS, or build from source on Linux/KVM). This SDK assumes libkrun is already linked — it does not auto-provision it.

Creating a sandbox

Sandbox.create is discriminated on os: — the options change per guest kind. Pass keyword arguments or a Hash.

# Linux OCI image (docker run-style)
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(
  os: "linux",
  image: "ghcr.io/owner/name:tag",
  cpus: 2,
  mem: 1024,
  volume: "web",                       # persistent CoW rootfs
  mounts: ["~/project:/src", "~/data:/data:ro"],
  net: { ports: ["8080:80", "2222:22"] },
  command: ["node", "server.js"]       # args after `--`
)

# FreeBSD (EFI on macOS, PVH on Linux/amd64)
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "freebsd", version: "14.3", mem: 2048)

# NetBSD (direct-kernel boot everywhere)
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "netbsd", version: "10.1", volume: "db")

# Boot a raw disk through its UEFI loader
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "firmware", firmware: "KRUN_EFI.fd", disk: "disk.raw")

# Boot a kernel directly, no bootloader
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "kernel", kernel: "netbsd", format: "elf", disk: "root.raw")

Every create runs the machine detached and returns a Sandbox handle.

Running commands

exec is the primary programmatic entrypoint. No shell parsing — pass an argv array (or a program name plus args:).

box.exec(["ls", "-la", "/etc"])

box.exec("ruby",
  args: ["-e", "puts ENV['X']"],
  env: { "X" => "hi" },
  cwd: "/app",
  stdin: "data on stdin",
  tty: true,                 # allocate a PTY
  throw_on_error: true)      # raise on non-zero exit (default: false)

# Vercel-Sandbox-style alias:
result = box.run_command("uname", ["-a"])
result.stdout       # raw stdout
result.text         # stdout, trailing newlines trimmed
result.exit_code
result.ok?          # true on exit 0
result.lines        # non-empty stdout lines

exec returns a Bsdkrun::Result. It only raises CommandFailed when you pass throw_on_error: true (or call result.throw_if_failed!).

Lifecycle & inventory

box  = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "linux", image: "alpine", command: ["sleep", "300"])
same = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.get(box.id)          # reconnect (prefix ok)
all  = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.list(all: true)      # Array<SandboxInfo>

box.status        # SandboxInfo | nil
box.running?      # true / false
box.logs          # console log (String)
box.shell         # interactive shell (inherits the terminal)
box.stop          # BSD guests clean-poweroff; Linux SIGTERM
box.start         # restart in place — resumes its own disk/rootfs (data persists)
box.update(cpus: 4, mem: 2048)               # applies on next start
box.remove(force: true)

Host-level namespaces:

Bsdkrun::System.probe                          # toolchain sanity check -> Boolean
Bsdkrun::Images.list                           # Array<ImageInfo>
Bsdkrun::Volumes.list                          # Array<VolumeInfo>
Bsdkrun::Volumes.remove("web", force: true)
Bsdkrun::Networks.list                         # Array<NetworkInfo>
Bsdkrun::System.fetch_image("freebsd", version: "14.3")
Bsdkrun::System.versions("netbsd")             # Array<String>

Networking, SSH & Tailscale

# forward ports at create time
Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(os: "linux", image: "alpine", net: { ports: ["2222:22"] })

# agent-managed key-based SSH
box.ssh_setup                                  # install local ~/.ssh/*.pub keys
box.ssh_setup(user: "tsiry", key: "~/.ssh/work.pub")

# put a guest on your tailnet
box.tailscale_up(authkey: "tskey-auth-...", hostname: "web")

Global networks — reach machines by name

Opt machines into a shared network so they get distinct IPs on one subnet and reach each other by IP and by name (docker-compose style), with internal DNS:

require "bsdkrun"

Bsdkrun::Networks.create("devnet")

db = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(
  os: "linux", image: "alpine", name: "db",
  net: { network: "devnet" }, command: ["sleep", "3600"]
)
api = Bsdkrun::Sandbox.create(
  os: "linux", image: "alpine", name: "api",
  net: { network: "devnet" }, command: ["sleep", "3600"]
)

# api reaches db by name over the shared subnet
api.exec(["ping", "-c1", "db"], throw_on_error: true)

# inspect + manage
Bsdkrun::Networks.list                # Array<NetworkInfo>
Bsdkrun::Networks.members("devnet")   # Array<SandboxInfo> on the network
info = db.status                      # info.network == "devnet", info.net_ip set

# edit membership (applies on next start — a VM's NIC is fixed at boot)
api.connect_network("devnet")         # or Bsdkrun::Networks.connect(api.id, "devnet")
api.disconnect_network
api.start                             # re-joins with the new membership

Bsdkrun::Networks.sync("devnet")      # refresh members' /etc/hosts (fixes NetBSD name lookup)
Bsdkrun::Networks.remove("devnet", force: true)

Names resolve on Linux and FreeBSD via the network's DNS; NetBSD resolves via a synced /etc/hosts block — joins auto-sync, and Networks.sync refreshes an existing network without restarting members.

Connecting to a remote daemon

Everything above talks to a local bsdkrun binary. Bsdkrun::Client is the network sibling: it drives the same operations against a remote bsdkrund over its GraphQL API — no local binary needed, just a URL and a bearer token.

require "bsdkrun"

client = Bsdkrun::Client.new(url: "http://vps.example.com:50052", token: "9f2c...")
# or, from BSDKRUN_URL / BSDKRUN_TOKEN:
client = Bsdkrun::Client.from_env

machines = client.list(all: true)  # Array<SandboxInfo> — same type Sandbox.list returns
id = client.run_linux(image: "alpine", cpus: 2, mem: 1024, command: ["sleep", "300"])

result = client.exec(id, ["uname", "-a"])
puts result.output, result.exit_code

client.stop(id)
client.remove([id])

client.run_linux/run_bsd/run_nanos/run_unikraft/run_solo5/run_osv/ run_flavor each take the same options as the corresponding GraphQL mutation (daemon/src/graphql.rs) — run_bsd(os: "freebsd", ...), etc. — and return the new machine's id. run_solo5 boots a MirageOS unikernel under the solo5-hvt tender rather than libkrun: run_solo5(path: "dist/hello.hvt", args: ["--ipv4=10.0.0.2/24"]). stop/start/remove/update/commit return a CommandResult (exit_code, stdout, stderr).

For a live terminal instead of a one-shot exec, use shell:

session = client.shell(id)  # or shell(id, command: [...]) for a non-login command
session.on_output { |bytes| $stdout.write(bytes) }
session.on_exit { |code| puts "\nexited #{code}" }
session.write("ls -la\n")
session.resize(50, 120)
session.close

follow_logs(id) { |bytes| ... } streams a machine's console live instead of the one-shot logs(id). Both exec/shell and follow_logs are built on the same openShell/shellOutput shell-session protocol the daemon uses for every interactive terminal — see daemon/README.md for the wire-level story.

Not every GraphQL operation has a typed method yet (flavor/network/volume management, for instance) — client.request(query, variables) runs any raw query or mutation, and client.subscribe(query, variables, on_next: ...) runs any raw subscription, for anything not wrapped above.

Like the rest of this gem, Client uses only the Ruby standard library — the HTTP transport is Net::HTTP, and subscriptions (used by exec/shell/ follow_logs) run over a hand-rolled graphql-transport-ws client on top of Socket/OpenSSL, since Ruby's standard library has no WebSocket client of its own.

Client.new(url:, token:) and .from_env both reject a URL configured without a token rather than silently making an unauthenticated request — set both BSDKRUN_URL and BSDKRUN_TOKEN, or pass both explicitly.

Errors

All errors extend Bsdkrun::Error:

• Bsdkrun::BinaryNotFound — the bsdkrun binary wasn't found.
• Bsdkrun::CommandFailed — a command exited non-zero (carries exit_code, stdout, stderr, command). Raised by exec with throw_on_error: true, by the lifecycle/namespace helpers, and by the agent helpers.
• Bsdkrun::SandboxNotFound — Sandbox.get matched no machine.
• Bsdkrun::GraphQLError — a Client request failed (carries code, the daemon's extensions.code, when there is one).
• Bsdkrun::AuthError (a GraphQLError) — the daemon rejected the bearer token.

Try it interactively

bin/console

Starts IRB with the SDK preloaded — Bsdkrun::Sandbox, the Bsdkrun.images / .volumes / .networks / .system namespaces, plus ps (every machine, exited ones included) and last (the newest one). Pass --bin ../../target/release/bsdkrun to drive a locally built binary for the session.

License

MIT