Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

news.ycombinator.com

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#71
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, that's one of Sysbox's main use-cases, we usually refer to it as 'docker sandboxes'. As you mentioned, the idea is to have your entire dev environment within your fully-customized container, which would allow you to take that environment wherever you go, you are not tied to a particular hypervisor or cloud service-provider. We have heard of people already using Sysbox in Jupyter ecosystem.

That's awesome. Are there public examples of what you'd consider a good setup for that use case that you could point me to? Or is one of the use cases in the Sysbox-EE User Guide a good example (I don't see a 'docker sandbox' one but I may have missed it). Thanks!

Please take a look at these examples and let us know if they help:

https://github.com/nestybox/sysbox/blob/master/docs/quicksta...

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#72
post #4

This seems like a feature that, once the need is demonstrated, docker will add to its own product eliminating the niche you hope to fill. Is it wise to go through all the effort and risk of starting a business to prove demand for a feature that an existing established product will then add, removing the need for your company? (Note this question is not a general critique of all startup ideas, it's specific to startup…

Startups that address gaps on established products are a great acquisition target for the companies. They would not have invested such time, effort and resources as a niche startup would have. I believe chances of success for such startups are better for a good exit.

True, but in that scenario such a startup only really has one exit strategy and it's hard to get much above acqui-hire pricing because the potential acquirer is well aware that they are making a build-vs-buy decision now that the market need and fit has been proven, and they as the potentially acquiring company control the cards in doing so.

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly curiosity. Probably docker in docker in docker.

Got it; note that inside a system container you can always run docker-in-docker using privileged containers ( https://hub.docker.com/_/docker ). That is, you don't need sysbox nesting in order to run more levels of docker nesting inside the system container. And those privileged containers would only be privileged within the system container, but not at host level.

Oh, that's cool. TIL. Thanks for taking the time to respond to something pretty far off in the weeds.

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#74
post #46
post #31

Ex-Docker person here. I got an early peek at Sysbox and I'm really excited by it -- it's really neat. Docker is missing a bunch of features that make some software work, which is why you can't run Docker inside Docker by default. Instead of dropping from containers all the way down to hardware virtualization, Sysbox is "augmenting" containers with the missing features by simulating them in userland. That gives you a…

i'm just curious. For what kind of use cases do you need docker inside of another docker?

I think you'll also need it if you want to use docker-compose in your CI.

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So can you run sysbox in sysbox?

Unfortunately not. Sysbox requires "true root" privileges, so it can't run inside a system container deployed by Sysbox itself (since that system container would use the user namespace). You can run Sysbox inside a privileged container however, and in fact the Sysbox test framework relies on this heavily. What use case do you envision for running sysbox in sysbox?

No OP but one of my first questions about any layer is “how transparent is it”. If it can’t host itself, it’s clearly not 100% transparent.

This matters because it adds cognitive overhead - I have to keep track of which features are available at which layer.

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#78

can you run kubernetes in nestybox ? entirely within the container ? if you can do this (and build a great experience around it), you have a winner. k3d.io does it somewhat...but not all the way. Updates,rollbacks, etc - everything that a sysadmin need.

> can you run kubernetes in nestybox ? entirely within the container ?

> if you can do this (and build a great experience around it), you have a winner.

Genuine question. I'm not that familiar with Kubernetes. Can you explain the pain this solves? What is this winning at?

Re: Launch HN: Nestybox (YC S20) – Containers beyond microservices

#79
post #75

Any advantage of using your solution over Kata Containers? https://katacontainers.io/

It's hard to compare them because the goals are different. Kata containers seeks to harden container security by wrapping it with a highly optimized VM. Sysbox seeks to enable containers to run system-level workloads (systemd, dockerd, k8s) without requiring complex images, privileged containers, special mounts, etc.

Also, Sysbox is a pure OS-virtualization technology, which means it runs in environments where hardware virtualization is not available (e.g., a cloud VM, since most cloud providers don't allow nested virtualization).

Post reply on HN