Firecracker-like microVMs for Proxmox VE — KVM isolation, under 200 ms boot.
See the code
A Debian package that adds QEMU microvm machine type support to Proxmox VE.
Runs OCI container images, Firecracker rootfs images, unikernels, and alternative OS as lightweight hardware-isolated VMs.
⚠️ Highly experimental. This project patches
qemu-serverinternals and has not been tested in production. Use at your own risk. The patches are fully reversible — uninstalling the package restores the original files.
📝 Blog post with some background · ❓ FAQ
We needed something between LXC containers and full QEMU VMs for running coding agents and other semi-trusted workloads.
| LXC | microvm | Standard VM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Namespace (shared kernel) | KVM (own kernel) | KVM (own kernel) |
| Boot time | ~50 ms | < 300 ms | 2–10 s |
| Overhead | Minimal | Minimal | Moderate |
| Attack surface | Broad (host kernel) | Minimal (virtio-pcie) | Broad (emulated PC) |
| Untrusted code | ⚠️ risky | ✅ safe | ✅ safe |
Hardware-isolated VMs with container-like speed, managed through the same
Proxmox tools you already use. No new runtime — QEMU's microvm machine type
is already on every PVE node.
# Install (always fetches the latest release)
curl -sLO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/rcarmo/pve-microvm/releases/latest | grep browser_download_url | grep '.deb' | cut -d'"' -f4)
dpkg -i pve-microvm_*.deb
# Create a template from any OCI image
pve-microvm-template --image debian:trixie-slim
# Clone and boot
qm clone 9000 901 --name my-sandbox --full
qm start 901
qm terminal 901
Or use the Create µVM button in the PVE web UI.
| Category | Images |
|---|---|
| Linux (apt) | Debian, Ubuntu |
| Linux (apk) | Alpine |
| Linux (dnf/tdnf) | Fedora, Rocky, Alma, Amazon, Oracle, UBI, Photon, Azure Linux |
| Router/Firewall | OpenWrt, OPNsense |
| BSD | SmolBSD (NetBSD, 31ms boot) |
| Plan 9 | 9Front |
| Unikernel | OSv, gokrazy |
| Compatible | Any Firecracker rootfs (ext4 import) |
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
pve-microvm-template | Create PVE templates from OCI images or specialist OS |
pve-oci-import | Convert any OCI image to a bootable microvm disk |
pve-microvm-share | Share host directories via virtiofs |
pve-microvm-9p | Share host directories via 9p (no daemon) |
pve-microvm-ssh-agent | Forward SSH agent via vsock |
pve-microvm-run | Ephemeral microvms (run and destroy) |
pve-microvm-bench | Boot time and overhead benchmarking |
| Web UI | Create µVM dialog, ⚡ icon, xterm.js console, panel hiding |
| Kernel | Pre-built 6.12.22 with PCIe virtio + vsock + virtiofs |
| z83ii (worst-case) | borg (reference) | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Atom x5-Z8350 @ 1.44 GHz | i7-12700 @ 4.9 GHz |
| RAM | 2 GB | 128 GB |
| PVE | 9.1.9 (qemu-server 9.1.8) | 9.1.7 (qemu-server 9.1.6) |
| QEMU | 10.1.2 | 10.1.2 |
Full cluster: 4 nodes — see Cluster Hardware.
| Feature | Priority |
|---|---|
| Network off by default | Medium |
| Egress allow-list (nftables) | Medium |
| Declarative VM config (TOML) | Low |
| GPU passthrough | Low |
| AArch64 guest support | Low |
| Upstream RFC for pve-devel | Low |
376 followers · starred Oct 2026
274 followers · starred Jun 2026
269 followers · starred May 2026
964 followers · starred Jun 2026
Firecracker-like microVMs for Proxmox VE — KVM isolation, under 200 ms boot.
See the code
A Debian package that adds QEMU microvm machine type support to Proxmox VE.
Runs OCI container images, Firecracker rootfs images, unikernels, and alternative OS as lightweight hardware-isolated VMs.
⚠️ Highly experimental. This project patches
qemu-serverinternals and has not been tested in production. Use at your own risk. The patches are fully reversible — uninstalling the package restores the original files.
📝 Blog post with some background · ❓ FAQ
We needed something between LXC containers and full QEMU VMs for running coding agents and other semi-trusted workloads.
| LXC | microvm | Standard VM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolation | Namespace (shared kernel) | KVM (own kernel) | KVM (own kernel) |
| Boot time | ~50 ms | < 300 ms | 2–10 s |
| Overhead | Minimal | Minimal | Moderate |
| Attack surface | Broad (host kernel) | Minimal (virtio-pcie) | Broad (emulated PC) |
| Untrusted code | ⚠️ risky | ✅ safe | ✅ safe |
Hardware-isolated VMs with container-like speed, managed through the same
Proxmox tools you already use. No new runtime — QEMU's microvm machine type
is already on every PVE node.
# Install (always fetches the latest release)
curl -sLO $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/rcarmo/pve-microvm/releases/latest | grep browser_download_url | grep '.deb' | cut -d'"' -f4)
dpkg -i pve-microvm_*.deb
# Create a template from any OCI image
pve-microvm-template --image debian:trixie-slim
# Clone and boot
qm clone 9000 901 --name my-sandbox --full
qm start 901
qm terminal 901
Or use the Create µVM button in the PVE web UI.
| Category | Images |
|---|---|
| Linux (apt) | Debian, Ubuntu |
| Linux (apk) | Alpine |
| Linux (dnf/tdnf) | Fedora, Rocky, Alma, Amazon, Oracle, UBI, Photon, Azure Linux |
| Router/Firewall | OpenWrt, OPNsense |
| BSD | SmolBSD (NetBSD, 31ms boot) |
| Plan 9 | 9Front |
| Unikernel | OSv, gokrazy |
| Compatible | Any Firecracker rootfs (ext4 import) |
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
pve-microvm-template | Create PVE templates from OCI images or specialist OS |
pve-oci-import | Convert any OCI image to a bootable microvm disk |
pve-microvm-share | Share host directories via virtiofs |
pve-microvm-9p | Share host directories via 9p (no daemon) |
pve-microvm-ssh-agent | Forward SSH agent via vsock |
pve-microvm-run | Ephemeral microvms (run and destroy) |
pve-microvm-bench | Boot time and overhead benchmarking |
| Web UI | Create µVM dialog, ⚡ icon, xterm.js console, panel hiding |
| Kernel | Pre-built 6.12.22 with PCIe virtio + vsock + virtiofs |
| z83ii (worst-case) | borg (reference) | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Atom x5-Z8350 @ 1.44 GHz | i7-12700 @ 4.9 GHz |
| RAM | 2 GB | 128 GB |
| PVE | 9.1.9 (qemu-server 9.1.8) | 9.1.7 (qemu-server 9.1.6) |
| QEMU | 10.1.2 | 10.1.2 |
Full cluster: 4 nodes — see Cluster Hardware.
| Feature | Priority |
|---|---|
| Network off by default | Medium |
| Egress allow-list (nftables) | Medium |
| Declarative VM config (TOML) | Low |
| GPU passthrough | Low |
| AArch64 guest support | Low |
| Upstream RFC for pve-devel | Low |
376 followers · starred Oct 2026
274 followers · starred Jun 2026
269 followers · starred May 2026
964 followers · starred Jun 2026