banger

One-command development sandboxes on Firecracker microVMs.

Quick start

make build
sudo ./build/bin/banger system install --owner "$USER"
banger vm run --name sandbox

That's it. banger vm run auto-pulls the default golden image (Debian bookworm with systemd, sshd, Docker CE, git, jq, mise, and the usual dev tools) and kernel, creates a VM, starts it, and drops you into an interactive ssh session. First run takes a couple minutes (bundle download); subsequent vm runs are seconds.

Supported host path

banger's supported host/runtime path is:

• Linux on x86_64 / amd64
• systemd as the host init/service manager
• bangerd.service running as the installed owner user
• bangerd-root.service running as the privileged host helper

Other setups may work with manual adaptation, but they are not the supported operating model for this repo.

Requirements

• x86_64 / amd64 Linux — arm64 is not supported today. The companion binaries, the published kernel catalog, and the OCI import path all assume linux/amd64. banger doctor surfaces this as a failing check on other architectures.
• systemd on the host — this is the supported service-management path. banger's supported install/run model is the owner-user bangerd.service plus the privileged bangerd-root.service installed by banger system install.
• /dev/kvm
• sudo for the install/admin commands (system install, system restart, system uninstall)
• Firecracker on PATH, or firecracker_bin set in config
• host tools checked by banger doctor

Build + install

make build
sudo ./build/bin/banger system install --owner "$USER"

This installs two systemd units, copies the current banger, bangerd, and banger-vsock-agent binaries into /usr/local, writes install metadata under /etc/banger, and starts both services:

• bangerd.service runs as the configured owner user and exposes the public CLI socket at /run/banger/bangerd.sock.
• bangerd-root.service runs as root and handles the narrow set of privileged host operations over the private helper socket at /run/banger-root/bangerd-root.sock.

After that, normal daily commands such as banger vm run and banger image pull are unprivileged.

This systemd service flow is the supported path. If you're not on a host that can run both services, you're outside the supported host model even if some pieces happen to work.

The split matters:

• bangerd.service runs as the owner user, keeps its writable state in /var/lib/banger, /var/cache/banger, and /run/banger, and sees the owner home read-only.
• bangerd-root.service is the only process that keeps elevated host capabilities, and that capability set is limited to the host-kernel primitives banger actually uses (CAP_CHOWN, CAP_SYS_ADMIN, CAP_NET_ADMIN).

To inspect or refresh the services:

banger system status
sudo banger system restart

To remove the system services:

sudo banger system uninstall

Add --purge if you also want to remove system-owned VM/image/cache state under /var/lib/banger, /var/cache/banger, /run/banger, and /run/banger-root. User config stays in place under your home directory:

• ~/.config/banger/ — config, optional ssh_config
• ~/.local/state/banger/ssh/ — user SSH key + known_hosts

Shell completion

banger ships completion scripts for bash, zsh, fish, and powershell. Tab-completion covers subcommands, flags, and live resource names (VM, image, kernel) looked up from the installed services. With the services down, resource completion silently returns nothing — no file-completion fallback.

# bash (system-wide)
banger completion bash | sudo tee /etc/bash_completion.d/banger

# zsh (user-local; ~/.zfunc must be on fpath)
banger completion zsh > ~/.zfunc/_banger

# fish
banger completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/banger.fish

banger completion --help shows the shell-specific loading recipes.

vm run

One command, four common shapes:

banger vm run                          # bare sandbox — drops into ssh
banger vm run ./repo                   # workspace at /root/repo — drops into ssh
banger vm run ./repo -- make test      # workspace + run command, exits with its status
banger vm run --rm -- script.sh        # ephemeral: VM is deleted on exit

• Bare mode gives you a clean shell.
• Workspace mode (path given) copies the repo's git-tracked files into /root/repo and kicks off a best-effort mise tooling bootstrap from the repo's .mise.toml / .tool-versions. Log: /root/.cache/banger/vm-run-tooling-<repo>.log. Untracked files (including local .env, scratch notes, credentials that aren't gitignored) are skipped by default — pass --include-untracked to also ship them. Pass --dry-run to print the exact file list and exit without creating a VM.
• Command mode (-- <cmd>) runs the command in the guest; exit code propagates through banger.

Disconnecting from an interactive session leaves the VM running. Use vm stop / vm delete to clean up — or pass --rm so the VM auto-deletes once the session / command exits.

--branch, --from, --include-untracked, and --dry-run apply only to workspace mode. --rm skips the delete when the initial ssh wait times out, so a wedged sshd leaves the VM alive for banger vm logs inspection.

Hostnames: reaching <vm>.vm

banger's owner daemon runs a DNS server for the .vm zone. With host-side DNS routing you can curl http://sandbox.vm:3000 from anywhere on the host — no copy-pasting guest IPs. On systemd-resolved hosts the owner daemon asks the root helper to auto-wire this and that is the supported path. Everywhere else there's a best-effort manual recipe. See docs/dns-routing.md.

Optional: ssh <name>.vm shortcut

banger vm ssh <name> works out of the box. If you'd also like plain ssh sandbox.vm from any terminal (using banger's key + known_hosts), opt in:

banger ssh-config --install    # adds `Include ~/.config/banger/ssh_config`
                               # to ~/.ssh/config in a marker-fenced block
banger ssh-config --uninstall  # reverse it
banger ssh-config              # show the include line to paste manually

banger never touches ~/.ssh/config on its own — the daemon keeps its own known_hosts under /var/lib/banger/ssh/known_hosts, while banger ssh-config keeps the user-facing file fresh at ~/.config/banger/ssh_config; whether and how it's pulled into your SSH config is up to you.

Image catalog

banger image pull <name> fetches a pre-built bundle from the embedded catalog. vm run calls this for you on demand.

Today's catalog:

Name	What it is
debian-bookworm	Debian 12 slim + sshd + docker + dev tools

See docs/image-catalog.md for the bundle format and how to publish a new entry.

Config

Config lives at ~/.config/banger/config.toml. All keys optional.

Most commonly set:

• default_image_name — image used when --image is omitted (default debian-bookworm, auto-pulled from the catalog if not local).
• ssh_key_path — host SSH key. If unset, banger creates ~/.local/state/banger/ssh/id_ed25519. Accepts absolute paths or ~/-anchored paths; ~/foo expands against $HOME. Relative paths are rejected at config load.
• firecracker_bin — override the auto-resolved PATH lookup.

Full key reference: docs/config.md.

vm_defaults — sizing for new VMs

Every vm run / vm create prints a spec: line up front showing the vCPU, RAM, and disk the VM will get. When the flags aren't set, those values come from:

1. [vm_defaults] in config (if present, wins).
2. Host-derived heuristics (roughly: cpus/4 capped at 4, ram/8 capped at 8 GiB, 8 GiB disk).
3. Built-in constants (floor).

banger doctor prints the effective defaults with provenance.

[vm_defaults]
vcpu = 4
memory_mib = 4096
disk_size = "16G"

All keys optional — omit whichever you want banger to decide.

file_sync — host → guest file copies

[[file_sync]]
host = "~/.aws"          # whole directory, recursive
guest = "~/.aws"

[[file_sync]]
host = "~/.config/gh/hosts.yml"
guest = "~/.config/gh/hosts.yml"

[[file_sync]]
host = "~/bin/my-script"
guest = "~/bin/my-script"
mode = "0755"            # optional; default 0600 for files

Runs at vm create time. Each entry copies host → guest onto the VM's work disk (mounted at /root in the guest). Guest paths must live under ~/ or /root/.... Host paths must live under the installed owner's home directory; ~/... is the intended form, and absolute paths are accepted only when they still point inside that home. Default is no entries — add the ones you want. A top-level symlink is followed only when its resolved target stays inside the owner home. Symlinks encountered while recursing into a synced directory are skipped with a warning — they'd otherwise leak files from outside the named tree (e.g. a symlink inside ~/.aws pointing to an unrelated credential dir).

Advanced

The common path is vm run. Power-user flows (vm create, OCI pull for arbitrary images, image register, manual workspace prepare) are documented in docs/advanced.md.

Security

Guest VMs are single-user development sandboxes, not multi-tenant servers. Each guest's sshd is configured with:

PermitRootLogin prohibit-password
PubkeyAuthentication yes
PasswordAuthentication no
KbdInteractiveAuthentication no
AuthorizedKeysFile /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

The host SSH key is the only authentication mechanism. StrictModes is on (sshd's default); banger normalises /root, /root/.ssh, and authorized_keys perms at provisioning time so the default passes.

VMs are reachable only through the host bridge network (172.16.0.0/24 by default). Do not expose the bridge interface or guest IPs to an untrusted network.

Further reading

• docs/config.md — full config key reference.
• docs/dns-routing.md — resolving <vm>.vm hostnames from the host.
• docs/image-catalog.md — bundle format and publishing.
• docs/kernel-catalog.md — kernel bundles.
• docs/oci-import.md — pulling arbitrary OCI images.
• docs/advanced.md — power-user flows.