Unikraft Summer Workshop 2024

A free and virtual workshop held by members of the Unikraft community this July 1 - July 20, 2024.

It focuses on cloud-native applications and on the unikernel technology that powers efficient and high performance cloud deployments. This is the fourth edition of the event, after USoC'21 to USoC'23, and unlike the previous editions, we will focus on cloud deployments of Unikraft applications.

The three-week event holds a number of starter tutorials and workshops on how to configure, build, run, deploy and debug cloud applications using Unikraft.

There will be 6 sessions taking place in the first two weeks (between July 1 and July 12, 2024). Each session takes place for 3 hours, in the 4pm-7pm CEST, in English. Sessions will consist of talks and demos delivered by members of the Unikraft community, followed by practical tutorials that you will work on with support and supervision. Sessions take place on Unikraft's Discord server.

Topics include building unikernels, benchmarking, debugging, porting applications, virtualization and platform specifics. The first 3 sessions (first week) will focus on using KraftKit, Unikraft's compation tool, to manage cloud applications. The next 3 sessions (second week) will focus on the internals of Unikraft: the build system, native configuration options, application porting.

The two weeks with sessions will be followed by a week of working on the final project. You will work on the project in teams of 2-3 people. We will have support sessions online to help with the project.

On Saturday, 20 July 2024, 9am-5pm CEST, we will have the final hackathon, that consists of adding final touches to the project. The hackathon will take place in hybrid format, in person, at the The National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, and, online, Unikraft's Discord server. Participants will receive a participation diploma. The first three teams will get special prizes. All hackathon in-person participants will get a Unikraft T-shirt.

Registration#

If you're eager to learn more about efficient cloud computing and unikernel technology, to work on practical open source tasks and to expand your knowledge of cloud-native and low-level topics, you'll want to be part of USW'24. You will need to complete a set of challenges that will get you accustomed to the environment you will be using during the sessions. You will need to submit the challenge solution on the registration form by Saturday, June 29, 2024, 10pm CEST.

It's recommended you check these prerequisites before taking part in USW'24:

• fair knowledge of Linux command-line interface
• good knowledge of programming concepts; knowledge of the C programming language is a plus
• basic understanding of operating system concepts: processes, threads, virtual memory, filesystems, file descriptors
• some exposure to the assembly language and computer architecture
• fondness for software engineering, hacking, tinkering with software components

People#

USW'24 will be held by members of the Unikraft community including professors and students from The National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA of Bucharest and the comercial side of Unikraft, Unikraft.io. Other members of the Unikraft community will provide online support on Discord.

Schedule#

USW'24 consists of 6 sessions, 3 support sessions and a final hackathon. Each session is 3 hours long and consists of practical tutorials and challenges for participants. The support sessions are 2 hours long and consists of providing support for the final project the teams are working on. The hackathon is a full day event (8 hours) where you'll add the final touches to the project, followed by the evaluation of the projects and the awarding ceremony.

The complete schedule for USW'24 is (all times in CEST - Central European Summer Time):

Registration Challenges#

First Challenge - Cloud Master#

Create a docker-compose.yml file that sets up a Compose application consisting of a database, a monitoring service, and a simple service that queries the database. The goal is to create an environment where these services can interact seamlessly within Docker containers.

Services Overview:

• Database Service: You can use whatever database suits you.
• Stats Service: A service that computes and provides statistical data (e.g. Grafana).
• Query Service: A simple API that interacts with the database (can be done in any programming language you like).

Be creative, use networks, volume, everything you like. You can extend the stack as much as you like.

Submit the docker-compose.yml in the registration form.

Second challenge - My First Unikernel#

Download the Unikernel image from here. Run it using qemu-system-x86_64 and find the flag. Upload the flag in the registration form.

Read the basic unikernel concepts here.