I haven't gone to network filter and logger yet, but I'm running mine in a VM, using lima (https://lima-vm.io/) to make it painless. Works on Mac and Linux, has an untested Windows version.

What's the difference between lima and conventional fat VM using kvm/virtualbox?

I only heard about smolvm yet and they are YC, so I'm hesitant to use them as they will probably one day pull the rug.

smolvm has better bootup time (<200ms), secrets handling, and egress control compared to lima. Among other things like native branching/forking of the vm itself.

As for the rug pull concern, I'm committed to open source with 2 pieces of evidence.

1. oss license 2. Business model is accruing revenue from offering hosted service + inbound due to the open source project. The business model + open source is aligned.

disclaimer: maintainer of smol machines

Nothing. Lima is a VM running Linux under the hood.

Came here to mention Lima. I use a ton, and it’s been great.