Wanix — Wasm-native Unix sandboxing for the web

Run and interact with real Wasm and x86 programs entirely sandboxed in the browser. No server. Inspired by Plan 9.

<wanix-term>
  <wanix-bind dst="rc.wasm" type="file"
    src="https://wanix.dev/extras/0.4.0-rc2/rc.wasm">
  </wanix-bind>
  <wanix-task cmd="rc.wasm" term start></wanix-task>
</wanix-term>

rc% ls
rc.wasm
rc%

Three tags and our Plan 9 inspired shell rc gets us a tiny
embedded, Wasm-native Unix-like environment.

</> wanix recipes

Basic starting points using Wanix Elements

Allocates a new #ramfs to the namespace root, binds in the rc shell and an inline file, then runs the shell task with a terminal. Try running:

ls
cat shell.txt

</> wanix elements

Just a few tags bootstrap a Unix for the web

Core — the building blocks

orthogonal primitives

<wanix-task> runs an executable in a namespace docs

Bind a Wasm binary into the namespace, then start it. cmd is the command line; start runs it headless as soon as the system is ready.

Inline a JS file and run it as a task. Wanix supports task drivers for pluggable execution with built-in drivers for JS and Wasm.

<wanix-term> an xterm.js terminal for a task or vm docs

Typically tasks are started with a terminal allocation that <wanix-term> automatically wires up to. Its common to use <wanix-term> as the top-level element for a task.

Visual elements like <wanix-term> can be used outside a namespace for styling flexibility, they just need explicit for and path attributes to wire up to Wanix terminal.

<wanix-vm> runs a virtual machine in a namespace, powered by v86 docs

Boot a headless Linux VM by binding in the v86 emulator assets and the Linux system image. It will detect the Linux kernel and boot to a shell.

This is more typical where you would allocate and attach a terminal, though for VM consoles the terminal needs to be in raw mode.

If the image supports, export="ttyS0" can be used to export the internal namespace at #vm/1/guest.

<wanix-namespace> an explicit namespace container docs

Use <wanix-namespace> to explicitly create a namespace. Using any other tag as the top-level element will implicitly create a namespace.

Give the namespace an id and allow-origins so other pages can import this namespace using an import bind.

<wanix-bind> bind mount files, archives, and other namespaces into the namespace docs

Bind can link names, allocate devices, or using type="file" it can fetch or inline files. Bind is a versatile primitive for building namespaces.

Using type="archive" you can unpack a .tar / .tgz into a directory tree. Layer multiple archives or directory binds to the same dst to create a recursive union.

Using type="import" you can import a remote namespace using 9P over WebSocket or as an embedded iframe.

Extended — larger components

require additional assets

<wanix-workbench> embedded VS Code workbench as editor, file explorer, full IDE, or app shell docs

Embed a VS Code workbench backed by the Wanix namespace. The assets attribute is required. A task with role="shell" needs to be given to enable a terminal.

Using attributes like open and sidebar you can control the initial state of the workbench. Here we simplify IDE to effectively be a single-file editor.

In the futre, you'll be able to add custom extensions and views to workbench and even live edit them within the workbench itself.

</> script tag

Add Wanix to any page

You can grab the assets from the latest release or just use the CDN:

<script type="module"
  src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/wanix@0.4.0-rc2/dist/wanix.min.js"></script>

the ideas behind wanix

19 min

the full story

The spirit of Plan 9, in Wasm

Per-process namespaces, everything-is-a-file, and why a research OS from the 90s turns out to be the right model for the local-first web.

▷ watch the talk