Getting started

Set custom location and compiler

By default the project is installed to /usr/local/includeos.

However, it is recommended to choose a custom location as well as select the compiler we want clang to find.

To do this we can edit ~/.bashrc, adding these lines at the end of the file:

export INCLUDEOS_PREFIX=<HOME FOLDER>/includeos
export PATH=$PATH:$INCLUDEOS_PREFIX/bin

This will also crucially make the boot program visible globally, so that you can simply run boot <myservice> inside any service folder.

Install libraries

NOTE: The script will install packages and create a network bridge.

$ git clone https://github.com/hioa-cs/IncludeOS
$ cd IncludeOS
$ ./install.sh

The script will:

  • Install the required dependencies: curl make clang-5.0 nasm bridge-utils qemu.
  • Build IncludeOS with CMake:
    • Download the latest binary release bundle from github together with the required git submodules.
    • Unzip the bundle to the current build directory.
    • Build several tools used with IncludeOS, including vmbuilder, which turns your service into a bootable image.
    • Install everything in $INCLUDEOS_PREFIX/includeos (defaults to /usr/local).

Configuration of your IncludeOS installation can be done inside build/ with ccmake ...

Testing the installation

A successful setup enables you to build and run a virtual machine. Running:

$ ./test.sh

will build and run this example service.

Writing your first service

  1. Create a blank directory.
  2. Create a minimal `service.cpp`
  3. Running “boot .” will add a CMakeList.txt based on the ./seed.
  4. Update the CMakeLists.txt to specify the name of your project, enable any needed drivers or plugins, etc.

Example:

$ mkdir ~/my_service
$ cd ~/my_service
$ emacs service.cpp
... add your code
$ boot .

Take a look at the examples and the tests on GitHub. These all started out as copies of the same seed.

Testing the demo service

A suitable service to test your installation is the Demo Service, found in `examples/demo_service`. It contains a simplistic web server that will serve out a single, static page.

$ cd examples/demo_service
$ boot --create-bridge .

Now the service should be running. In another shell session you can try to ping the service to see if responds.

::
$ ping -c 3 10.0.0.42 PING 10.0.0.42 (10.0.0.42): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 10.0.0.42: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.379 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.42: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.370 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.42: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.639 ms $

Great. The final step is to see if we get a web page from the service.

$ links -dump http://10.0.0.42/
IncludeOS  The C++ Unikernel

You have successfully booted an IncludeOS TCP service with simple http.
For a more sophisticated example, take a look at Acorn.