💻Virtual Oxide Labs Emulates Full Oxide Rack with Voxel
Developers can now test rack-scale hardware on a mini-PC
TL;DR
Virtual Oxide Labs now uses Voxel to emulate full oxide racks on a mini-PC, enabling realistic testing of rack-scale hardware. This tool allows developers to replicate diverse customer networking topologies and run the actual control plane without special test versions.
Virtual Oxide Labs has introduced Voxel, a software emulation stack built on illumos in Rust, to emulate full oxide racks on a mini-PC. This development addresses the challenge of testing and developing for rack-scale hardware, which is not easily accessible. Voxel enables the testing of up-to-date software versions and hardware components, including switches and microcontrollers, without compromising on realism. Developers can now replicate diverse customer networking topologies and run the actual control plane (Omicron) in various degrees of simulation. This tool is a game-changer for teams working on rack-scale hardware, as it eliminates the need for special test versions and allows for comprehensive testing on a single mini-PC.
Key Points
Voxel, built on illumos in Rust, emulates full oxide racks on a Minisforum MS-A2 mini-PC with a 32-thread AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX and 96GB RAM.
Oxide Helios and a decent NVMe drive are required to run Voxel, which can spin up 6 sleds with ease, either in one rack or multirack configuration.
Voxel provides sled virtualization, BGP, and static networking with Debian and FRRP4-powered switches, as well as microcontroller simulation for SP and RoT.
Oxide installs its control plane (Omicron) on a VM, snapshots it before configuration, and uses Tufaceous to package Omicron releases with TUF and Buildomat.
Oxide launches racks using an 'frr' image, control plane image, and voxel-init agent, adding network routes and gateways, and flashing the Hubris archive into SP flash.
Why It Matters
If you're developing for rack-scale hardware, Voxel flips the script on testing and development. It allows you to replicate diverse customer networking topologies and run the actual control plane without special test versions. However, the setup requires Oxide Helios and a decent NVMe drive, and the performance depends on your mini-PC's specs.
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