Unikraft is an automated system for building specialized OSes and unikernels tailored to the needs of specific applications. It is based around the concept of small, modular libraries, each providing a part of the functionality commonly found in an operating system (e.g., memory allocation, scheduling, filesystem support, network stack, etc.).
In addition, Unikraft has the concept of external libraries. These are what we commonly understand as standard libraries such as libc or openssl, and help to enhance the functionality of Unikraft and the range of applications it is able to support.
Unikraft supports multiple target platforms (e.g., Xen, KVM and Linux userspace for development purposes), so that it is possible to build multiple images, one for each platform, for a single application without requiring the application developer to do any additional, platform-specific work.
The configuration and build process are driven by a menu system inspired by Linux's kConfig system, making it easy to choose different libraries and configure them. This simplifies the process of trying out different configurations in order to extract the best possible performance out of a particular application.
In all, Unikraft is able to build specialized OSes and unikernels targeted at specific applications without requiring the time-consuming, expert work that is required today to build such images.
For more information information about Unikraft, including user and
developer guides, please refer to the docs/guides directory.