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Fat binaries solve only for dependency. Containers also deal with isolating environment variables and filesystem. Each program doesn't have to worry about what
by cobookman 9y ago
Fat binaries solve only for dependency. Containers also deal with isolating environment variables and filesystem.
Each program doesn't have to worry about what else is running on the machine. It also helps you deal with the differences between say Ubuntu and redhat. Not all nix os have the same filesystem directory setup.
- Yeroc 9y agoContainers are overkill if you're just trying to isolate environment variables and filesystems. I mean really, if that was your problem and you came up with containers as the solution I'd say you over-engineered the solution. Environment variables -- trivial -- set them in the wrapper script used to launch the binary and you're done. Filesystem -- use separate nix accounts for your binaries and set appropriate permissions, for additional security use tools like se-linux if needed. Somehow, somewhere along the line it seems like there's this huge echo-chamber of 'containers for all things' and we have thrown out all we ever new about basic nix. Contrarian views like the one in the article are healthy!