Cheap Docker images with Nix
lethalman.blogspot.com
Cheap Docker images with Nix
1–10 of 51 posts
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#2Once https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/14711 is merged, the images might also be binary deterministic (depending on what packages you use).
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#3Once https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/14711 is merged, the images might also be binary deterministic (depending on what packages you use).
Already merged :)
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#4Haha, very good.
So Nix makes even the use of Docker better, while some Nix user here claimed that you don't even need Docker if you're using Nix(OS).
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#5Haha, very good. So Nix makes even the use of Docker better, while some Nix user here claimed that you don't even need Docker if you're using Nix(OS).
You don't need in fact. But sometimes you are forced to use Docker anyway.
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#6Interesting. Not being that familiar with Nix(OS), how much of a moving target Nix is? Can you do these kinds of things with stable versions or do you need to keep up with HEAD?
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#7Interesting. Not being that familiar with Nix(OS), how much of a moving target Nix is? Can you do these kinds of things with stable versions or do you need to keep up with HEAD?
The blog post code is supposed to run with latest master since a few days. We've merged a big change that leads to reducing a lot the closure of our packages.
Nix moves fast enough, in the sense we usually do a good job at not breaking things. Yet we have to necessarily introduce innovations in our frameworks.
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#8Why isn't he using the Alpine based Redis image when comparing final image sizes?
It's unfair to say the official Redis image is 177mb because the Alpine version is available on the Docker Hub[1] and it's only 15.95mb.
Alpine is pretty awesome if your main goal is to shrink images without any effort[2].
[1] https://hub.docker.com/_/redis/
[2] http://nickjanetakis.com/blog/alpine-based-docker-images-mak...
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#9If the goal is solely Docker images with a standard size in the 20-40MB range, this can be achieved without additional tooling. After switching our development and deployment flow to docker, my team quickly tired of the 200-400MB images that seemed to be accepted as commonplace. We started basing our containers on alpine (essentially, busybox with a package manager) or alpine derivatives, and dropped into that target size immediately. Spinning up 8-10 microservices locally for a full frontend development stack is a shockingly better experience when that involves a 200MB download rather than a 2GB one.
This is in no way a negative commentary on Nix; it looks like an interesting solution to a well-known problem.
Re: Cheap Docker images with Nix
#10@Lethalman: Can you expound on this?
> Be aware that things like PAM configurations, or other stuff, created to be suitable for Debian may not work with Nix programs that use a different glibc.
So this would not be a factor using the method which has no base? The Debian base approach seems like a non-starter if negative emergent behavior like PAM config mismatches are common.
Also, to be sure, I can do this "no base Docker build" using Nix on let's say CentOS 7? Meaning, I'm not required to use NixOS natively?
I plan to read the post closer later today, so feel free to ignore these questions if they are answered in-post, but I usually don't post to HN from work computer, so I thought I'd get my questions out here early in case the thread drops and I forget to ask. :-)
Nice work!