Mollymawk: orchestration and management of MirageOS unikernels

2025-02-01

For MirageOS unikernels we developed the orchestration platform albatross. Albatross has a command-line interface. We also have reproducible binary builds of MirageOS unikernels.

We propose to bridge the gap, and introduce mollymawk - a web interface to seamless deployment, updating, and monitoring your MirageOS unikernel fleet. Mollymawk itself will be a unikernel that contains the credentials to communicate to an albatross service.

Mollymawk will serve both (a) as a user interface for operators, and also (b) as a HTTP API endpoint. Thus, you will be able to deploy a unikernel from a CI run.

A third part of mollymawk will be a feature to (c) auto-upgrade running unikernels using our reproducible builds database - including rollback to the previous version if the upgrade failed. This includes the development of a (d) notification channel to the operator(s) using eMail.

And finally, we plan to push the boundaries and simplify unikernel deployment by using (e) auto-configuration of IP addresses (and logging/monitoring), updating the DNS (or a reverse proxy), and pushing a let's encrypt certificate already in the DHCP reply.

We received in 2025 until 2026 funding through NGI Zero Core, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet program. The amount is 50_000€.

Involved are mainly Pixie and Hannes.