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Talos: OS for Kubernetes

talos-systems.com

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Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#31

Post by utopian3 »

andrewrynhard wrote: post #12
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

If there are any folks here from Talos, I think there's a lot of confusion about what it is, where it fits in the stack and so on. I think part of the confusion comes from the scarcity of diagrams. I personally also find it helpful to have design motivations laid out. There is a list of "capabilities and benefits", but it would help me to understand what the current state of the world before Talos is added to it.

Hi. I am writing up a response now :)

FYI: Talos is a trademarked name. In tech. So is Telos. This will be very confusing and likely cause you issues

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#33

Post by rainyMammoth »

It took me a lot of reading before understanding that this is an OS on which you run a Kubernetes node//master and not a so-called OS on top of Kubernetes.

Somehow When I read "OS for Kubernetes" I thought it was yet one more layer of abstraction on top of Kubernetes.

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#34

Post by andrewrynhard »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #33

It took me a lot of reading before understanding that this is an OS on which you run a Kubernetes node//master and not a so-called OS on top of Kubernetes. Somehow When I read "OS for Kubernetes" I thought it was yet one more layer of abstraction on top of Kubernetes.

Ahh thanks for the feedback. One thing is clear from all this is that we can do a better job in documentation.

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#36

Post by andrewrynhard »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #30

Can somebody give me(/HN) a TL;DR of how this differs from existing OSs targeted for Kubernetes, like GCP's Container-Optimized OS? https://cloud.google.com/container-optimized-os/ The big difference seems to be removing SSH. I understand the theoretical rationale, but in practice it seems like this would complicate troubleshooting quite a bit. Yes, maybe you shouldn't be SSHing into prod ever, but how do you keep th…

We have added an API to help with the practical issues in removing SSH. In doing that it has also opened up interesting opportunities in automation that we are currently fleshing out.

The difference here is that Talos is purpose-built for Kubernetes. What that means is that we will pour resources into automated upgrades paths for our users. Tighter integration with Kubernetes, where we envision a self-healing system that makes use of the Kubernetes and Talos APIs to make decisions.

Also the things I mentioned in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21066732

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#37

Post by peterwwillis »

utopian3 wrote: post #31
andrewrynhard wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. I am writing up a response now :)

FYI: Talos is a trademarked name. In tech. So is Telos. This will be very confusing and likely cause you issues

Things that are called Talos from a basic web search: 1) Cisco's security group, 2) an energy company, 3) an Elder Scrolls character, 4) a cryptocurrency, 5) a high school website, 6) some sort of data science thing, 7) body armor manufacturer, 8) a recurring Marvel Universe character, 9) a biochem program, 10) a secure IBM workstation, 11) a beer dispenser, 12) a Swiss management consulting firm, ...

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#38

Post by cwojno »

andrewrynhard wrote: post #34
rainyMammoth wrote: post #33

It took me a lot of reading before understanding that this is an OS on which you run a Kubernetes node//master and not a so-called OS on top of Kubernetes. Somehow When I read "OS for Kubernetes" I thought it was yet one more layer of abstraction on top of Kubernetes.

Ahh thanks for the feedback. One thing is clear from all this is that we can do a better job in documentation.

I wish these sales-type pages had a "click here if you're an engineer." The page would contain a buzzword-free, straightforward explanation of what the product's purpose is, what its major features are, and what interfaces are exposed for control and flow.

I have passed on countless products when evaluating solutions for having very flashy sales pages with no actual description of the product itself. "Improve your ROI! Decrease Downtime!" aren't features, per se, but potential benefits that can only be determined if the product is a fit, and I can only determine fit if I know that the hell it does.

/rant

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#39

Post by andrewrynhard »

cwojno wrote: post #38
andrewrynhard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh thanks for the feedback. One thing is clear from all this is that we can do a better job in documentation.

I wish these sales-type pages had a "click here if you're an engineer." The page would contain a buzzword-free, straightforward explanation of what the product's purpose is, what its major features are, and what interfaces are exposed for control and flow. I have passed on countless products when evaluating solutions for having very flashy sales pages with no actual description of the product itself. "Improve your RO…

As an engineer I understand this completely. We are already discussing internally how we can improve our site and documentation. Our goal is to create a vibrant community and getting all the sales fluff out of the way is something I support!

Re: Talos: OS for Kubernetes

#40

Post by alex-mohr »

andrewrynhard wrote: post #14

Hey folks, Talos creator here. Happy to answer any questions you guys may have. Sounds like some confusion about exactly what Talos is. A lot of good feedback here that we will take and improve our documentation. Talos is a Linux distribution built specifically for Kubernetes. The short version is that we have stripped out absolutely everything that is not required to make a machine a Kubernetes node, including SSH a…

Generally seems like a great offering!

I see immutable, but also upgradable? Is that via in-place upgrades or do upgrades require a reboot?

Example: severe bug or vulnerability in kubelet or containerd/docker. Can I use the API to roll out a fix to existing nodes such that running workloads have no disruption?

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