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Microsoft Announces Nano Server
- scott_karana 12y agoI'm interested in what the licensing will be like, compared to "larger" editions.
- brixon 12y agoI hope it will cost a lot less. Might interesting for the C# people to use non-Azure clouds more if the costs are more inline with Linux based systems.
- mmgutz 12y agoasp.vnext is targeting Linux. My guess is those who will run on other clouds will likely use Linux/container*OS instead.
- Someone1234 12y agoWith MVC moving to a Linux compatible infrastructure in the next version, it may be too little too late, and C# people might just use Linux for real. Literally the only C# "thing" which won't run on Linux is Visual Studio itself. Heck we might even see a Linux Powershell version here in the next few years.
- algorithmsRcool 12y agoNot quite, WPF and winforms are still out in the cold along with some other things. But for sever-side code, .net core + asp.net will get the job done.
- pjmlp 12y agoWe never had any issues deploying .NET applications in Amazon.
- brk 12y agoIMO the licensing needs to be free and very simple. For me, this has always been one of the HUGE benefits of linux. If I have an idea I can spin up a full server stack (OS, SQL, HTTPD, etc.) for $0 (outside of hardware/hosting). With linux there is no friction you need to overcome in determining if the cost of trying something out is worth the financial side. The elastic hosting options take away a lot of this, but there is still (to me at least) this mental barrier to Windows in knowing that I might run into licensing costs or administration issues before I determine if the project itself is worth said cost.
- ComputerGuru 12y agoI'm guessing this is going to be very similar to what Microsoft has in mind for the Raspberry-Pi?
- jjmiv 12y agoI think it leans more toward CoreOS and Kubernetes.
- Zikes 12y agoYeah, I believe their RPi version is a lightweight consumer-facing version of Windows 8, not intended for use as a server.
- tdicola 12y agoNo, there's a lot of confusion from bad messaging with the Pi 2 and Windows 10 announcement. By all reports Win 10 on the Pi 2 is a system to run services that have no GUI, desktop, or other UI.
- Zikes 12y agoWow, no UI? That radically changes my expectations for Windows+Pi 2, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
- algorithmsRcool 12y agoIs that actually true? MS has demoed Windows IoT with a UI on minimal devices already. Both ARM and x86. I don't know if the dragonboard 410c is in a different class than the pi2 however. Take a look on Don Box's presentation at WinHEC from last month. Device talk stats about ~40 mins, device demo starts at ~44 mins. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/WinHEC/2015/Developing-for-the-Windows-10-Device-Platform http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/WinHEC/2015/Developing-for-t...
- tdicola 12y ago
- mc32 12y ago92 % fewer security bulletins and 80% fewer reboots. One can hope that's not just promise.
- waitwaitwhay 12y agoThat is not a promise.
- jewel 12y agoI believe what they are saying is that they looked at historical security updates and saw what percentage of them would have applied. Because it has less code, there are security updates that wouldn't have been relevant. That seems like a reasonable approach to me, if that was their methodology.
- e40 12y ago80% fewer reboots Still many times more frequent than w/Linux. The 2008 R2 development system we have needs to be rebooted every two weeks, on average, due to Windows Updates that require a reboot. Updates come in almost every day for CentOS and I only need to reboot once ever couple of months for new kernels. Can't wait for the no-reboot kernel patches planned for a future Linux kernel.
- akoeplinger 12y ago> The 2008 R2 development system we have needs to be rebooted every two week, due to Windows Updates [..] Windows Updates are published once a month (except for very critical fixes), so I wonder how that is possible in your environment?
- Someone1234 12y ago> The 2008 R2 development system we have needs to be rebooted every two weeks, on average, due to Windows Updates that require a reboot. Uhh they literally don't release updates that often, so you'll have to explain that one to us... > Updates come in almost every day for CentOS and I only need to reboot once ever couple of months for new kernels. Windows doesn't support hotpatching, Linux does, it really is as simple as that. Linux has more people working on it than the Windows kernel does, and is just a more advanced kernel in general at this point. But for what Microsoft has to work with Windows Server is darn stable and requires very few restarts in my experience (approx. 4/year in my experience with 2008 and 2008 R2).
- Someone1234 12y agoMicrosoft has a real hole in their stack in my opinion... So on Linux you have SSH (for shell) and X11 Forwarding/VNC for GUI remoting. On Windows you have RDP for GUI and nothing for remote shell. Now, I know what you're going to say, "WMI" but WMI was never designed for use over the internet. You have to forward two fixed ports and a dynamic range (shudder). Plus it isn't security hardened either by design or through fire. VPN you say? In theory yes. But the reality on the ground is that for most SMBs they're still using RDP or SSH directly to manage Windows/Linux servers, and if Windows wants to compete (and they are dropping RDP) they need to have an "answer" to SSH. Essentially they need to take whatever WMI is, wrap it into a secure protocol, and bind it to just a single port, then harden the heck out of whatever process directly runs on that port (before you hit the WMI interface itself). Or alternatively write an SSH server (literally), and after login redirect input to a Powershell process. Nobody would complain about that (plus free SFTP support!). PS - I'm totally going to get attacked by "VPN purists" here. But really everyone knows that SSH and RDP is extremely common for SMBs/private individuals. Let's quit pretending that it is not and support the client that actually exists, not the client you wished existed.
- sixothree 12y ago> We are improving remote manageability via PowerShell with Desired State Configuration as well as remote file transfer, remote script authoring and remote debugging Is PowerShell not what you're looking for, or is it not implemented similar to SSH?
- Someone1234 12y agoRemote Powershell exists, but you don't have a great deal of control over the Powershell interface (like you would with an SSH daemon), if you want to "opt-in" users one by one for remote Powershell, well, you cannot. Also setting it up to work over the internet securely is, a touch complicated: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/09/17/want-remote-powershell-management-from-your-browser-see-how-powershell-web-access-in-windows-server-2012-may-help.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/09/17/wan... It is a cool party trick that it can work via a web-browser and IIS. But if that's what it takes to make Powershell remoting secure without a VPN then it isn't workable.
- kefka 12y ago--92 percent fewer critical bulletins --80 percent fewer reboots Compared to what a barebones Linux install (Say... a Docker instance)? I can easily shut off a service in Linux. And I can turn it on. The only reboot needed is for the Kernel itself, and that is soon changing. What I'm reading here is that MS is most of the way there to Linux.
- mkr-hn 12y agonet start [service name] net stop [service name]
- kefka 12y agoWhich does absolutely nothing on Patch Tuesday updates that require a reboot.
- darklajid 12y agoActually I tend to use sc start/stop for that, but .. should be the same. Important utilities: - findstr ('grep') - sc (control services) - taskkill (kill/control processes) - netsh (everything network) - wevtutil (windows event log)
- mkr-hn 12y agoI figure there's probably a reason Microsoft uses net for this on their help page.
- Intermernet 12y agoThe difference is in synchronicity. Using SC START on the help page should properly be followed by SC QUERY in order to check that the service started. NET START won't return until the service starts, errors, or times out. > "SC sends the control to the service and then returns to the command prompt. This typically results in SC START returning the service in a state of START_PENDING. NET START will wait for the service it is starting to come to a fully started state before it returns control at the command prompt." From http://cbfive.com/command-line-service-management-net-v-sc/ http://cbfive.com/command-line-service-management-net-v-sc/
- fla 12y agoThey call it Nano, I call it a server. Happy to see Microsoft is evolving. Let's hope it will be for everyone's best.
- gbog 12y ago> Let's hope it will be for everyone's best. Anything making MS better cannot be for everyone's best: they have a de facto monopoly, and of the most dangerous kind. That's why despite all the bad that can be said against Google and Android, at the very least they had enough weigth (and talent, and luck) to push MS out of mobile. Which was the greatest news for our industry since Internet. Also, I do not agree with Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html): sadly, MS is not dead yet. It cannot be dead for real with 9x% of install on PCs.
- andreser 12y agohttps://github.com/andres-erbsen/dename https://github.com/andres-erbsen/dename uses a less flexible federated consensus to build a namecoin-like system without proof of work (or stake, or anything).
- manigandham 12y agoI think you're on the wrong thread, maybe you're looking for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9341687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9341687
- cies 12y agoFrom this announcement: http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/08/microsoft-unveils-new-container-technologies-for-the-next-generation-cloud http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/08/microsoft-unveils... I read: > Nano Server provides just the components you need – nothing else And that's exactly what I do not trust MS with. With a well documented history of backdoor ridden bloat ware products it is not quite the company that I accept any non-opensource release to have "just what I need and nothing else". Though I must admit that the opensource train they are riding lately allows me to look at them them from a very new perspective. But still, MS if you are listening: if it is not opensource, I do not trust you!
- cies 12y agoPlease down voter(s), leave a note.. :)
- cies 12y agoEven my "request for down vote explanation" gets down voted! Hilarious...
- kefka 12y agoThat's fine. Then this release (and frankly, any MS product) is not for you. But some enterprises use MS software, and this is a much needed option. ObVote: I downvoted your complaint imaginary internet points has no bearing on the discussion at hand.
- mattbillenstein 12y agoWhat is the use-case for this? Modern Linux distros have all the tooling, libraries, utilities already - is the idea to use this for hosting .Net stuff?
- recursive 12y agoRunning stuff that requires Windows.
- csours 12y agoI think the point is that "Windows" is pretty thin with this server. If there's no GUI available that sounds like there will be no USER32 (good riddance btw); and if there's no USER32, many "Windows" programs won't work.
- mattbillenstein 12y agoWell obviously - this just seems to be creeping into the space where Linux is an incumbent anyway and I can't see anyone who's running common OSS stacks wanting to use this in favor of Linux based platforms.
- cwyers 12y agoIf you have servers that need to run Windows, even if they can't run on Nano, you can have fat Windows Server boxes and Nano boxes and configure them using the same tools, rather than having a mixed Windows/Linux shop?
- CRidge 12y agoWith micro service architecture being one of the big buzz words at the moment, I see this as a great way to separate individual micro services (with some clever routing in front). Using Nano would make these services separate and easy to update without affecting eachother. Continous delivery FTW :-)
- dekhn 12y agoI've set up cygwin with an OpenSSH server on Windows before (to run remote MinGW compiles). Echoing Bill Gates, "In a weak sense, it [NT] is a form of Unix." That doesn't really cover remote management, though.
- faragon 12y agoOh. Microsoft reimplemented Unix, at last. Congratulations :-)
- robert_nsu 12y agoUmm... Haven't you ever heard of Xenix?
- faragon 12y agoYes. Xenix was not a reimplementation, but a port.
- rjurney 12y agoHave they embraced and extended? I can't tell from a quick read.
- Uhhrrr 12y agoEven if the implementation turns out to be lacking, the goal is good: > As customers adopt modern applications and next-generation cloud technologies, they need an OS that delivers speed, agility and lower resource consumption. I know the kneejerk reply to this is, "Yeah, Linux!", but I can think of at least 2 Windows-based applications in my company which would benefit from this. And in general, yay competition.
- EvanAnderson 12y agoIf Microsoft would break out the old Interix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix) code and throw it on here I'd be ecstatic. (Interix was pretty great, back in the day. I think MSFT made a mistake deprecating it. A lot of FLOSS tools built on Interix just fine, back in the '99 timeframe, and if it hadn't been put out to pasture it could have definitely served as a sell into the POSIX world.)
- MichaelGG 12y agoMy real concern is that figuring out so many things without the GUI is currently a real PITA. Like trying to make IIS act as a reverse proxy. It's a huge pain, and most of the docs are telling you to click various things. Compared to setting up nginx, ouch. Compounding things is the fact that MS took a cover-our-ass policy to installing things, so even after installing IIS, you've gotta go explicitly install "dynamic" compression as an extra. Then to really make it work, there's a file buried in system32 you've gotta edit, because you can't configure those settings by default at a site level. Overall, it's just way more complicated. I know they're working on it, and PS is a great shell overall, even if it is missing a lot of simple tools by default. But MS is way late to the party. OpenVZ was in heavy use what, a decade ago? And MS did nothing to respond, really. But hey, maybe they'll pull it off. I don't have a fundamental objection to Windows.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoWindows has always been super-visual. For many tasks there isn't even a CLI way to do it short of editing the registry.
- newuser88273 12y agoThe registry is not very discoverable. However, once you discovered, a lot of customization can be had from running as little as a single registry script. As a trivial example, remapping caps-lock to something sane was easier on the last few windows releases I tried (just run a registry script) than on any of the 'nixes I used in the same time period.
- chebum 12y agoIIS management is done via WMI which will work for this version of Windows Server: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj635848.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj635848.aspx
- MichaelGG 12y agoRight, it technically exists, and for some common scenarios, some people may get it to work. Step outside that, and it seems like a world of pain. Like, for instance, IIS's half-baked reverse proxy, ARR (Application Request Routing). Despite being aimed at a very narrow set of applications and overall being cumbersome and annoying, all of the docs I've found on it are screenshot-and-clickhere based. MS has a ton of work to do if they wanna make a non-GUI Windows viable, and it seems like if they don't have a lot of that work done upfront, they're going to end up providing a very unappealing first taste to customers. I hope they succeed, just that it seems to be a much larger problem than just cutting out parts of Windows.
- chebum 12y agoThe main question is pricing. If it will be cheap or free (who knows?), it will be an option for hosting micro-services on myriad of VPSes. A probably a resurrection of interest for ASP.NET framework.
- bovermyer 12y agoA new shell-only Microsoft operating system in 2015 makes me happy for reasons I can't identify.