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Features

Instance Forking

Instance forking lets a running instance create an independent copy of itself at a snapshot boundary. Both the original instance (the parent) and the copy (the child) resume execution from the same memory state. This works like fork(2) in a POSIX process.

Filesystem interface

The fork interface uses a FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) filesystem mounted at /uk/libukp inside every instance. Apps trigger forks and track child instances by reading and writing (ASCII) files in this filesystem.

The filesystem exposes the following top-level entries:

Path	Read	Write	Description
/uk/libukp/fork	Returns the child UUID after a fork (for the parent), or empty (for the child).	Triggers a new fork operation.	Main entry point for forking.
/uk/libukp/vm/	Directory listing of all child instance UUIDs.	—	Each child gets a subdirectory named by its UUID.

Triggering a fork

To fork the current instance, write any value to the fork file:

Code
echo "1" > /uk/libukp/fork

The write blocks until the platform completes the fork. When it returns, the parent can read the child's UUID from the same file:

Code
# Returns the UUID of the newly created child (parent only)
# To support parallel forks, only the thread initiating the fork can read the return value from the file.
cat /uk/libukp/fork

For the child instance, reading /uk/libukp/fork returns a zero UUID. This is how an app determines whether it's the parent or the child after a fork.

Concurrent fork requests

The platform serializes fork operations. Only one fork can run at a time. If a second fork request arrives while one runs, the platform queues it. If the queue fills up, the write returns EBUSY.

The platform processes queued requests in order once the current fork completes.

Tracking child instances

After a fork, a new directory appears at /uk/libukp/vm/<child-uuid>/ containing files that reflect the child's state:

File	Read	Write	Description
snapshot	Snapshot UUID the child originates from.	—	Read-only.
creation_time	Unix timestamp (seconds since epoch) of child creation.	—	Read-only.
status	Current state: Starting, Running, Draining, Stopping, Stopped, or Template.	—	Read-only.
wait	Exit code of the child (available once stopped).	Write any value to begin waiting for the child to stop.	Supports poll() for non-blocking use. Returns POLLIN when the exit code becomes available.

Waiting for a child to stop

To block until a child instance exits:

Code
# Write to begin the wait, then read the exit code
echo "1" > /uk/libukp/vm/<child-uuid>/wait
cat /uk/libukp/vm/<child-uuid>/wait

The write to wait blocks until the child stops. After the write completes, reading wait returns the numeric exit code.

If the child has already stopped by the time you write to wait, the write completes immediately.

Many processes can wait on the same child concurrently. The platform notifies each one when the child exits.

For non-blocking usage, poll() on the wait file descriptor returns POLLIN when the exit status becomes available.

Checking child status

To inspect a child's current state without blocking:

Code
cat /uk/libukp/vm/<child-uuid>/status
# Output: Running

The platform updates the status file in real time.

Possible states and their numeric values:

State	Description
Stopped	Instance has exited.
Starting	Instance is booting.
Running	Instance is running.
Draining	Instance is draining connections before stopping.
Stopping	Instance is shutting down.
Template	Instance has become a template.

Child lifecycle

• Children have delete-on-stop enabled automatically. The platform removes them when they stop.
• The child's /uk/libukp/vm/ directory starts empty. The child doesn't inherit any children from the parent—it only sees children from forks it starts itself.
• A parent can have many children alive at the same time.
• A child can itself fork, becoming a parent to its own children.

Error handling

Error	Cause
EBUSY	Fork queue is full.
EIO	Hardware signal to the platform failed, or the request belonged to a parent before a fork occurred.
ESTALE	A child VM directory access occurred after the child's cleanup (for example, after the current instance became a child via fork).

Learn more

• Instance templates: a related snapshot-based feature for creating instances from a stopped template.
• Unikraft Cloud's REST API reference, in particular the section on instances.