4 ms·

How is debian nowdays for setting up things like containers? I've tried lxc in the past few years ago and got it working but it was not a pleasant experience, t

by ergo14 9y ago

How is debian nowdays for setting up things like containers? I've tried lxc in the past few years ago and got it working but it was not a pleasant experience, templates were broken. I would love them to gain back more server marketshare.

Jedd 9y ago
If there's anything that's not covered under: https://wiki.debian.org/LXC https://wiki.debian.org/LXC I'm sure the maintainers would love to hear from you.
chrisper 9y ago
One LXD has been ported, it should become easier. However I am afraid it might still take quite some time. https://wiki.debian.org/LXD https://wiki.debian.org/LXD
noonespecial 9y ago
I'm a docker fan myself but Debian is all I use and it works just fine.
juanmirocks 9y ago
I use for nearly all my docker containers the distro Alpine Linux. It is much lighter. I commonly find that Alpine images use at least 300MB less disk than Debian ones.
- muxator 9y ago
  I think he was asking about debian as a host
- oweiler 9y ago
  For containers I'd suggest using Debian slim.
  - juanmirocks 9y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know about Debian slim. For comparison, I just found this blog post [1], claiming the following: > According to the docker images command, the debian:jessie-slim container clocks in at 88MB, compared to the full-fat debian:jessie container at 123MB. For reference, the ubuntu:xenial and centos:7 base containers are 130MB and 193MB respectively, where as the alpine base container is only 4MB, as mentioned in my post about the alpine base container. [1] https://elegantinfrastructure.com/containers/cotw-debian-jessie-slim/ https://elegantinfrastructure.com/containers/cotw-debian-jes...
    - amenod 9y ago
      This is always a dilemma for me... Alpine allows for really small packages, but I never got used to its packaging tools (and I don't feel confident writing Dockerfiles with it). A matter of practice I guess. Besides, Docker caches layers so if you're using some common base layer (like Ubuntu or Debian) it's probably already on the machine. So I usually write Dockerfiles as `FROM debian` and then later adapt them to Alpine if they're meant to be distributed.
      - juanmirocks 9y ago
        Yes, I did like you before. But once I got used to Alpine, apk (its package manager), and ash (its shell), I feel myself at home. Furthermore, in most occasions I find newer updated software on Alpine vs. Debian. Also besides disk space, I really have no idea how docker manages memory, but my assumption (naive?) is that smaller images will consume less RAM memory. I didn’t benchmark this though.
        amenod 9y ago
        Sorry for late reply. Depends on what is in the package. Docker is just a thin separation of processes, so the situation is very similar to size of packages on host Linux OS. What matters is the size of binaries and loaded data, which I guess is not that different between distributions.
e12e 9y ago
Docker-ce from upstream docker works well on Debian. I've not looked at "naked" lxc for quite some time - but I've used Lxd on Ubuntu a bit, and that's a great experience. If what you want is "containers" (single-purpose, ephemeral) - I'd say for now the docker tooling is best. But there's not much isolation - there lxc is better. I've yet to try alternative "run times" like rkt - but I believe that's the better way forward compared to docker. For now we use docker mostly for packing up an application and managing dependencies - not for resource/security isolation. I suggest reading over : https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other-projects.html#rkt-vs-docker https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other-projects.htm...
krutzger 9y ago
Have you tried this? https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/getting-started-cli/ https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/getting-started-cli/ If you are an lxd fan you probably want to move to Ubuntu or maybe even Ubuntu core.

by ergo14 9y ago

Jedd 9y ago

If there's anything that's not covered under: https://wiki.debian.org/LXC https://wiki.debian.org/LXC I'm sure the maintainers would love to hear from you.

chrisper 9y ago

One LXD has been ported, it should become easier. However I am afraid it might still take quite some time. https://wiki.debian.org/LXD https://wiki.debian.org/LXD

noonespecial 9y ago

I'm a docker fan myself but Debian is all I use and it works just fine.

juanmirocks 9y ago

I use for nearly all my docker containers the distro Alpine Linux. It is much lighter. I commonly find that Alpine images use at least 300MB less disk than Debian ones.

muxator 9y ago
I think he was asking about debian as a host
oweiler 9y ago
For containers I'd suggest using Debian slim.
- juanmirocks 9y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know about Debian slim. For comparison, I just found this blog post [1], claiming the following: > According to the docker images command, the debian:jessie-slim container clocks in at 88MB, compared to the full-fat debian:jessie container at 123MB. For reference, the ubuntu:xenial and centos:7 base containers are 130MB and 193MB respectively, where as the alpine base container is only 4MB, as mentioned in my post about the alpine base container. [1] https://elegantinfrastructure.com/containers/cotw-debian-jessie-slim/ https://elegantinfrastructure.com/containers/cotw-debian-jes...
  - amenod 9y ago
    This is always a dilemma for me... Alpine allows for really small packages, but I never got used to its packaging tools (and I don't feel confident writing Dockerfiles with it). A matter of practice I guess. Besides, Docker caches layers so if you're using some common base layer (like Ubuntu or Debian) it's probably already on the machine. So I usually write Dockerfiles as `FROM debian` and then later adapt them to Alpine if they're meant to be distributed.
    - juanmirocks 9y ago
      Yes, I did like you before. But once I got used to Alpine, apk (its package manager), and ash (its shell), I feel myself at home. Furthermore, in most occasions I find newer updated software on Alpine vs. Debian. Also besides disk space, I really have no idea how docker manages memory, but my assumption (naive?) is that smaller images will consume less RAM memory. I didn’t benchmark this though.
      - amenod 9y ago
        Sorry for late reply. Depends on what is in the package. Docker is just a thin separation of processes, so the situation is very similar to size of packages on host Linux OS. What matters is the size of binaries and loaded data, which I guess is not that different between distributions.

e12e 9y ago

Docker-ce from upstream docker works well on Debian. I've not looked at "naked" lxc for quite some time - but I've used Lxd on Ubuntu a bit, and that's a great experience. If what you want is "containers" (single-purpose, ephemeral) - I'd say for now the docker tooling is best. But there's not much isolation - there lxc is better. I've yet to try alternative "run times" like rkt - but I believe that's the better way forward compared to docker. For now we use docker mostly for packing up an application and managing dependencies - not for resource/security isolation. I suggest reading over : https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other-projects.html#rkt-vs-docker https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/rkt-vs-other-projects.htm...

krutzger 9y ago

Have you tried this? https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/getting-started-cli/ https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/getting-started-cli/ If you are an lxd fan you probably want to move to Ubuntu or maybe even Ubuntu core.