4 ms·

Multi-Kernel Drifting

102 points by zdw 4y ago

Calamityjanitor 4y ago
I've been running OmniOS on my home NAS since 2015. In theory you should be able to compile and install any open source software on OmniOS/Illumos, but let’s be honest, the world assumes you’re running linux. Devs already have enough issues supporting different linux distros, sometimes you’ll see specific BSD support which can help but good luck if your issue is Illumos distro specific. Sometimes fixing these issues can be interesting and offer teaching in fundamental differences in unix.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
squirrel 4y ago
A debugging tour de force all the way down the stack, from Unix command to reinstall to truss and dtrace to C code to assembly to analysing data structures! Leaky abstractions indeed.
teekert 4y ago
I love seeing Hugo with the Terminal theme in the wild. [0] [0]: https://github.com/panr/hugo-theme-terminal https://github.com/panr/hugo-theme-terminal
bfung 4y ago
The title bait’ed my inner troll. The author did not disappoint at the very end of the article. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/multi-track-drifting https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/multi-track-drifting
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Deja vu...
  - devmor 4y ago
    I've compiled this script before...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jiggawatts 4y ago
It always blows my mind to see people trying to do something that is Windows native on Linux. Would you automate your Linux build using VB Script? Why not? When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Citrix actually purchased a company like this and sold their Linux-based virtual appliance that did one thing and one thing only: create Windows disk images for running Windows applications. It was the stupidest thing I had ever seen that was packed full of clever solutions to problems that didn’t need solving.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Think the point there is to not pay for windows license to make some images
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  Eh, it depends on context. If all your build servers are *nix boxes, no point in spinning up an NT machine just for building those images. In a Microsoft shop, controlling *nix boxes with powershell is probably a decent idea.
- thrwawy74 4y ago
  I actually had a neighbor who worked for Citrix and this describes him to a T. He was such a clever waste of time. I miss you Skip.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  > trying to do something that is Windows native on Linux. You realize this blog post is about Illumos, not Linux, right? Illumos isn't nearly as well-polished. A lot of these types of tasks are easier on Linux than they are on Windows native.
  - nix23 4y ago
    Whait linux is polished compared to illumos? Man you need a reality check.
  - bragr 4y ago
    >You realize he's not using Linux, right? FTA: I had already gotten it working with QEMU under KVM on Linux but wanted to port it to propolis on our illumos distro, Helios.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
I suppose that's an argument for running the same OS everywhere; you can't accidentally build against OmniOS if your run all Helios. I wonder if it would be possible to mark the package with the distribution that it was built on to avoid this kind of thing? ("You just tried to run an OmniOS program/module on Helios; are you sure you want to do that?")
- hamburglar 4y ago
  Spitballing here, but one could imagine a compatilibity assurance mechanism that baked in a hash of all the structs and function signatures in the kernel interfaces in some well-defined way that fixes the ordering. Runtime check when loading the module, bail if the hashes don’t match.
  - spijdar 4y ago
    I haven't tracked OpenSolaris/illumos in a while, but it seems kind of bizarre that different "distros" of illumos would have different kernel ABIs. To me that's the definition of a different OS, in the way OpenBSD was a divergent fork of NetBSD. Reminds me (in a negative way, if I'm totally honest) of stories of old proprietary unixes/BSDs from the 80s/90s, with really minor but incompatible changes to a shared BSD/SysV source. Anyway, I guess there's a lot of practical problems in defining either a new ABI or ABI version in the ELF headers, so the different distros just sort of pretend to all be "Solaris". If I remember, Solaris (de facto?) disallows static linking, and uses dynamic linking with libc to solve the ABI compatibility problem. Wouldn't help stuff like kernel modules/FUSE, I reckon. The biggest question to me is why Helios is using the FUSE kernel module from OmniOS. If the kernels were strictly identical, this makes sense, but if they're not, it seems weird. Since Helios is a secret Oxide thing (?), guess it's a mystery.
    - evol262 4y ago
      The UNIXes of the 80s/90s had far less in common than this. They had a shared root, but diverged very far in terms of userspace and kernel.

102 points by zdw 4y ago

I've been running OmniOS on my home NAS since 2015. In theory you should be able to compile and install any open source software on OmniOS/Illumos, but let’s be honest, the world assumes you’re running linux. Devs already have enough issues supporting different linux distros, sometimes you’ll see specific BSD support which can help but good luck if your issue is Illumos distro specific. Sometimes fixing these issues can be interesting and offer teaching in fundamental differences in unix.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

squirrel 4y ago

A debugging tour de force all the way down the stack, from Unix command to reinstall to truss and dtrace to C code to assembly to analysing data structures! Leaky abstractions indeed.

teekert 4y ago

I love seeing Hugo with the Terminal theme in the wild. [0] [0]: https://github.com/panr/hugo-theme-terminal https://github.com/panr/hugo-theme-terminal

bfung 4y ago

The title bait’ed my inner troll. The author did not disappoint at the very end of the article. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/multi-track-drifting https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/multi-track-drifting

marginalia_nu 4y ago
Deja vu...
- devmor 4y ago
  I've compiled this script before...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jiggawatts 4y ago

It always blows my mind to see people trying to do something that is Windows native on Linux. Would you automate your Linux build using VB Script? Why not? When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Citrix actually purchased a company like this and sold their Linux-based virtual appliance that did one thing and one thing only: create Windows disk images for running Windows applications. It was the stupidest thing I had ever seen that was packed full of clever solutions to problems that didn’t need solving.

ilyt 4y ago
Think the point there is to not pay for windows license to make some images
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Eh, it depends on context. If all your build servers are *nix boxes, no point in spinning up an NT machine just for building those images. In a Microsoft shop, controlling *nix boxes with powershell is probably a decent idea.
thrwawy74 4y ago
I actually had a neighbor who worked for Citrix and this describes him to a T. He was such a clever waste of time. I miss you Skip.
throwaway09223 4y ago
> trying to do something that is Windows native on Linux. You realize this blog post is about Illumos, not Linux, right? Illumos isn't nearly as well-polished. A lot of these types of tasks are easier on Linux than they are on Windows native.
- nix23 4y ago
  Whait linux is polished compared to illumos? Man you need a reality check.
- bragr 4y ago
  >You realize he's not using Linux, right? FTA: I had already gotten it working with QEMU under KVM on Linux but wanted to port it to propolis on our illumos distro, Helios.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

I suppose that's an argument for running the same OS everywhere; you can't accidentally build against OmniOS if your run all Helios. I wonder if it would be possible to mark the package with the distribution that it was built on to avoid this kind of thing? ("You just tried to run an OmniOS program/module on Helios; are you sure you want to do that?")

hamburglar 4y ago
Spitballing here, but one could imagine a compatilibity assurance mechanism that baked in a hash of all the structs and function signatures in the kernel interfaces in some well-defined way that fixes the ordering. Runtime check when loading the module, bail if the hashes don’t match.
- spijdar 4y ago
  I haven't tracked OpenSolaris/illumos in a while, but it seems kind of bizarre that different "distros" of illumos would have different kernel ABIs. To me that's the definition of a different OS, in the way OpenBSD was a divergent fork of NetBSD. Reminds me (in a negative way, if I'm totally honest) of stories of old proprietary unixes/BSDs from the 80s/90s, with really minor but incompatible changes to a shared BSD/SysV source. Anyway, I guess there's a lot of practical problems in defining either a new ABI or ABI version in the ELF headers, so the different distros just sort of pretend to all be "Solaris". If I remember, Solaris (de facto?) disallows static linking, and uses dynamic linking with libc to solve the ABI compatibility problem. Wouldn't help stuff like kernel modules/FUSE, I reckon. The biggest question to me is why Helios is using the FUSE kernel module from OmniOS. If the kernels were strictly identical, this makes sense, but if they're not, it seems weird. Since Helios is a secret Oxide thing (?), guess it's a mystery.
  - evol262 4y ago
    The UNIXes of the 80s/90s had far less in common than this. They had a shared root, but diverged very far in terms of userspace and kernel.