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FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

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Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#21

Post by StreamBright »

ajross wrote: post #12
drclau wrote: post #7

FreeBSD Jails were so much better than everything else out there, for a long time. I'll just copy&paste part of a comment I wrote on another HN thread some time ago, since it's relevant here: [...] In fact, many years ago, when FreeBSD was my main OS (including on notebook) I went as far as to isolate each app that used internet into its own custom-setup jail [0][1]. I had Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and a few other…

Yes, but in a sense that's the essence of why the technology got left behind. Jails were a mechanism for expert admins to play with container ideas. What the market actually wanted was Docker. And what Docker needed was Linux containers (complicated, flexible, piecewise technology) and not jails, which were higher level abstractions (but yet not high enough) with jargon and framework assumptions that didn't match Doc…

The "market" did not want Docker. Docker as a product failed.

There are many reasons why FreeBSD jails count not get out for FreeBSD land, one, very important thing is the Linux community's NIH attitude.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#22

Post by lordgroff »

laumars wrote: post #8
freemint wrote: post #2

I never understood the appeal of BSD jails over Solaris zones which seem to be more hardened and seem to vitualize more of the OS.

FreeBSD is the appeal. Back in the earlier days of containerisation Linux had no options (Linux was pretty late to that particular game) and Solaris wasn’t free. So FreeBSD made a lot of sense. These days the tooling around Linux is better and there are open source forks of Solaris so FreeBSD might seem like an odd choice for some. However I still think FreeBSD is a rock solid operating system and one that doesn’t ge…

While I'm thoroughly a Linux person, I agree. I understand why Docker and the Linux container won the day, but the fact that FreeBSD is one system helps a ton with the overall intelligibility of the system inside that container. Oh, this container is Debian based, this is Centos, that one is busybox... No, every jail is just a FreeBSD system you know what you get for its bones. That's really nice.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#23

Post by freemint »

drclau wrote: post #10
freemint wrote: post #2

I never understood the appeal of BSD jails over Solaris zones which seem to be more hardened and seem to vitualize more of the OS.

Note that FreeBSD Jails were introduced in 1999, while Solaris Containers and Zones were introduces in 2004. At the time FreeBSD Jails were introduced, probably the only alternative that was wildly available was chroot, which is really far from what Jails offer. Full virtualization was too slow to be practical for most scenarios, back then. 1999 is the year when Pentium III was released.

I've seen nothing which would suggest that Solaris zones are more taxing than BSD jails. Did you imply that claim?

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#24

Post by pjmlp »

drclau wrote: post #7

FreeBSD Jails were so much better than everything else out there, for a long time. I'll just copy&paste part of a comment I wrote on another HN thread some time ago, since it's relevant here: [...] In fact, many years ago, when FreeBSD was my main OS (including on notebook) I went as far as to isolate each app that used internet into its own custom-setup jail [0][1]. I had Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and a few other…

I beg to differ, given that HP-UX Virtual Vaults were quite alright and precede Jails.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#26

Post by GordonS »

pjmlp wrote: post #18
ajross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but in a sense that's the essence of why the technology got left behind. Jails were a mechanism for expert admins to play with container ideas. What the market actually wanted was Docker. And what Docker needed was Linux containers (complicated, flexible, piecewise technology) and not jails, which were higher level abstractions (but yet not high enough) with jargon and framework assumptions that didn't match Doc…

And slowly the only thing left from Docker will be the image format.

And the Registry API too, I expect, but yeah, the untimely demise of Docker as a company feels inevitable at this point.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#27

Post by freemint »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #13
laumars wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeBSD is the appeal. Back in the earlier days of containerisation Linux had no options (Linux was pretty late to that particular game) and Solaris wasn’t free. So FreeBSD made a lot of sense. These days the tooling around Linux is better and there are open source forks of Solaris so FreeBSD might seem like an odd choice for some. However I still think FreeBSD is a rock solid operating system and one that doesn’t ge…

FreeBSD's appeal for me is the easy maintenance. Everything related to config is in /etc/rc.conf; tunables in /boot/loader.conf. The ZFS implementation is rock-solid. I therefore only have to fiddle with my FreeBSD server, running 80TB ZFS storage pool, once a year or so. No other OS gives me this kind of comfort and stability.

I wonder if Solaris has bigger userbase it would also appeal to you.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#28

Post by StreamBright »

laumars wrote: post #14
fsflover wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, but I never understood how BSD jails or Solaris zones are better over normal hardware virtualization which is used in Qubes OS. In addition, you get a great UX in the latter.

Containerisation makes much more sense than virtualisation in a lot of areas: * lower runtime overhead * quicker deployment time * smaller image foot print Plus most of the advantages of VMs can still be applied. However it does massively depend on individual use cases. Qubes aims to be ultra secure and containers in Linux weren’t up to that task at the time (the situation has since improved massively).

- lower runtime overhead

- quicker deployment time

- smaller image foot print

Firecracker beg to differ. I think you can do virtualisation and have all three you listed.

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#29

Post by tomc1985 »

lordgroff wrote: post #22
laumars wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeBSD is the appeal. Back in the earlier days of containerisation Linux had no options (Linux was pretty late to that particular game) and Solaris wasn’t free. So FreeBSD made a lot of sense. These days the tooling around Linux is better and there are open source forks of Solaris so FreeBSD might seem like an odd choice for some. However I still think FreeBSD is a rock solid operating system and one that doesn’t ge…

While I'm thoroughly a Linux person, I agree. I understand why Docker and the Linux container won the day, but the fact that FreeBSD is one system helps a ton with the overall intelligibility of the system inside that container. Oh, this container is Debian based, this is Centos, that one is busybox... No, every jail is just a FreeBSD system you know what you get for its bones. That's really nice.

Pretty sure you can run Debian or Busybox as a FreeBSD jail if you want

Re: FreeBSD Jails for Fun and Profit (2020)

#30

Post by drclau »

pjmlp wrote: post #24
drclau wrote: post #7

FreeBSD Jails were so much better than everything else out there, for a long time. I'll just copy&paste part of a comment I wrote on another HN thread some time ago, since it's relevant here: [...] In fact, many years ago, when FreeBSD was my main OS (including on notebook) I went as far as to isolate each app that used internet into its own custom-setup jail [0][1]. I had Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin and a few other…

I beg to differ, given that HP-UX Virtual Vaults were quite alright and precede Jails.

(noticed your reply to my other comment too, please consider this a reply to both)

I wasn't aware of HP-UX Virtual Vaults, thanks. However, I'd say FreeBSD Jails still had an advantage, due to being free and running on various hardware platforms, and more importantly on commodity hardware.

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