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Create WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) node pools in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to run your WebAssembly (WASM) workload (preview)

  • Article

WebAssembly (WASM) is a binary format that is optimized for fast download and maximum execution speed in a WASM runtime. A WASM runtime is designed to run on a target architecture and execute WebAssemblies in a sandbox, isolated from the host computer, at near-native performance. By default, WebAssemblies can't access resources on the host outside of the sandbox unless it is explicitly allowed, and they can't communicate over sockets to access things environment variables or HTTP traffic. The WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) standard defines an API for WASM runtimes to provide access to WebAssemblies to the environment and resources outside the host using a capabilities model.

Important

WASI nodepools now use containerd shims to run WASM workloads. Previously, AKS used Krustlet to allow WASM modules to be run on Kubernetes. If you are still using Krustlet-based WASI nodepools, you can migrate to containerd shims by creating a new WASI nodepool and migrating your workloads to the new nodepool.

Before you begin

You must have the latest version of Azure CLI installed.

Install the aks-preview Azure CLI extension

Important

AKS preview features are available on a self-service, opt-in basis. Previews are provided "as is" and "as available," and they're excluded from the service-level agreements and limited warranty. AKS previews are partially covered by customer support on a best-effort basis. As such, these features aren't meant for production use. For more information, see the following support articles:

To install the aks-preview extension, run the following command:

az extension add --name aks-preview

Run the following command to update to the latest version of the extension released:

az extension update --name aks-preview

Register the 'WasmNodePoolPreview' feature flag

Register the WasmNodePoolPreview feature flag by using the az feature register command, as shown in the following example:

az feature register --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "WasmNodePoolPreview"

It takes a few minutes for the status to show Registered. Verify the registration status by using the az feature show command:

az feature show --namespace "Microsoft.ContainerService" --name "WasmNodePoolPreview"

When the status reflects Registered, refresh the registration of the Microsoft.ContainerService resource provider by using the az provider register command:

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ContainerService

Limitations

  • Currently, there are only containerd shims available for spin and slight applications, which use the wasmtime runtime. In addition to wasmtime runtime applications, you can also run containers on WASM/WASI node pools.
  • You can run containers and wasm modules on the same node, but you can't run containers and wasm modules on the same pod.
  • The WASM/WASI node pools can't be used for system node pool.
  • The os-type for WASM/WASI node pools must be Linux.
  • You can't use the Azure portal to create WASM/WASI node pools.

Add a WASM/WASI node pool to an existing AKS Cluster

To add a WASM/WASI node pool, use the az aks nodepool add command. The following example creates a WASI node pool named mywasipool with one node.

az aks nodepool add \
    --resource-group myResourceGroup \
    --cluster-name myAKSCluster \
    --name mywasipool \
    --node-count 1 \
    --workload-runtime WasmWasi

Note

The default value for the workload-runtime parameter is ocicontainer. To create a node pool that runs container workloads, omit the workload-runtime parameter or set the value to ocicontainer.

Verify the workloadRuntime value using az aks nodepool show. For example:

az aks nodepool show -g myResourceGroup --cluster-name myAKSCluster -n mywasipool --query workloadRuntime

The following example output shows the mywasipool has the workloadRuntime type of WasmWasi.

az aks nodepool show -g myResourceGroup --cluster-name myAKSCluster -n mywasipool --query workloadRuntime

"WasmWasi"

Configure kubectl to connect to your Kubernetes cluster using the az aks get-credentials command. The following command:

az aks get-credentials -n myakscluster -g myresourcegroup

Use kubectl get nodes to display the nodes in your cluster.

kubectl get nodes -o wide

NAME                                 STATUS   ROLES   AGE    VERSION    INTERNAL-IP   EXTERNAL-IP   OS-IMAGE             KERNEL-VERSION      CONTAINER-RUNTIME
aks-mywasipool-12456878-vmss000000   Ready    agent   123m   v1.23.12   <WASINODE_IP> <none>        Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS   5.15.0-1020-azure   containerd://1.5.11+azure-2
aks-nodepool1-12456878-vmss000000    Ready    agent   133m   v1.23.12   <NODE_IP>     <none>        Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS   5.15.0-1020-azure   containerd://1.5.11+azure-2

Use kubectl describe node to show the labels on a node in the WASI node pool. The following example shows the details of aks-mywasipool-12456878-vmss000000.

kubectl describe node aks-mywasipool-12456878-vmss000000

Name:               aks-mywasipool-12456878-vmss000000
Roles:              agent
Labels:             agentpool=mywasipool
...
                    kubernetes.azure.com/wasmtime-slight-v1=true
                    kubernetes.azure.com/wasmtime-spin-v1=true
...

Running WASM/WASI Workload

Create a file named slight.yaml with the following content:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: wasm-slight
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: wasm-slight
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: wasm-slight
    spec:
      runtimeClassName: wasmtime-slight-v1
      containers:
        - name: hello-slight
          image: ghcr.io/deislabs/containerd-wasm-shims/examples/slight-rust-hello:v0.3.3
          command: ["/"]
          resources:
            requests:
              cpu: 10m
              memory: 10Mi
            limits:
              cpu: 500m
              memory: 128Mi
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: wasm-slight
spec:
  type: LoadBalancer
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 80
      targetPort: 80
  selector:
    app: wasm-slight

Note

When developing applications, modules should be build against the wasm32-wasi target. For more details, see the spin and slight documentation.

Use kubectl to run your example deployment:

kubectl apply -f slight.yaml

Use kubectl get svc to get the external IP address of the service.

kubectl get svc

NAME          TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP    PORT(S)        AGE
kubernetes    ClusterIP      10.0.0.1       <none>         443/TCP        10m
wasm-slight   LoadBalancer   10.0.133.247   <EXTERNAL-IP>  80:30725/TCP   2m47s

Access the example application at http://EXTERNAL-IP/hello. The following example uses curl.

curl http://EXTERNAL-IP/hello
hello

Note

If your request times out, use kubectl get pods and kubectl describe pod <POD_NAME> to check the status of the pod. If the pod is not running, use kubectl get rs and kubectl describe rs <REPLICA_SET_NAME> to see if the replica set is having issues creating a new pod.

Clean up

To remove the example deployment, use kubectl delete.

kubectl delete -f slight.yaml

To remove the WASM/WASI node pool, use az aks nodepool delete.

az aks nodepool delete --name mywasipool -g myresourcegroup --cluster-name myakscluster