webvm/README.md

WebVM

This repository hosts the source code for https://webvm.io, a Linux virtual machine that runs in your browser.

WebVM is a server-less virtual environment running fully client-side in HTML5/WebAssembly. It's designed to be Linux ABI-compatible. It runs an unmodified Debian distribution including many native development toolchains.

WebVM is powered by the CheerpX virtualization engine, and enables safe, sandboxed client-side execution of x86 binaries on any browser. CheerpX includes an x86-to-WebAssembly JIT compiler, a virtual block-based file system, and a Linux syscall emulator.

How to: enable networking

• Go to https://webvm.io.
• Click "Tailscale Login" in the top right corner.
• Log in to Tailscale (create an account if you don't have one).
• If you are unfamiliar with Tailscale or would like additional information see WebVM and Tailscale.

How to: fork and deploy

• Fork the repository.
• Enable Github pages in settings.
  • Click on Settings.
  • Go to the Pages section.
  • Select Github Actions as the source.
• Run the workflow.
  • Go to the forked repository its Github actions tab.
  • Accept the prompt.
  • Click on the workflow named Deploy.
  • Click Run workflow and then once more Run workflow.

After the action completes, it will show the URL to the GitHub Pages site below the deploy_to_github_pages job.

How to: host WebVM locally

• Replace UID and GID with the requested uid and gid in double quotes.
• Replace DEVICE_TYPE with "bytes".
• Run nginx -p . -c nginx.conf in the root of the WebVM directory. WebVM can then be found at http://localhost:8081.

Bugs and Issues

Please use Issues to report any bug. Or come to say hello / share your feedback on Discord.

Browsers support

WebVM and CheerpX are compatible with any browser, both Desktop and Mobile, provided support for SAB, IndexedDB, and the device having enough memory.

More links

• Do: WebVM
• Read: WebVM
• Read: WebVM + Tailscale networking
• Learn: WebVM
• Watch: WebVM at GitNation

Thanks to...

This project depends on:

• CheerpX, made by Leaning Technologies for the virtualization part
• xterm.js, https://xtermjs.org/, for providing the Web-based terminal emulator
• Tailscale for the networking component
• lwIP for the TCP/IP stack, compiled to the Web by Cheerp

License

Copyright (c) Leaning Technologies Limited. All rights reserved.