Running a Docker Host under OpenBSD using vmd(8) | Hacker News Reader

Running a Docker Host under OpenBSD using vmd(8)

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41 pointshucste17 comments

This is awesome. I'm inspired to try it on freebsd. Docker is the killer app feature keeping me on Linux.

I don't linke FreeBSD but love OpenBSD. If they would support something like zfs I would usw it AS my go to nas machine.

Why do you dont like freebsd?

I dont linke their wireguard Fiasko and the way they patch SSH.

FreeBSD just doesnt offer enough benefits compared to Linux for me. OpenBSD in the other Hand is very special to me.

Also FreeBSD uses ZFSonLinux so license issues aside it doesnt even benefit me there.

> Also FreeBSD uses ZFSonLinux so license issues aside it doesnt even benefit me there.

You are misinformed here, Linux, BSD and Illumos all use OpenZFS they all work together, and there is no license issues, why do you think that?

FreeBSD just changed the from Illumos to OpenZFS, whats the problem when everyone works on one project?

https://openzfs.org/wiki/Main_Page

>>The OpenZFS project brings together developers from the Linux, FreeBSD, illumos, MacOS, and Windows platforms. OpenZFS is supported by a wide range of companies.

Well the rest of your points is like saying i don't like OpenBSD because it cuts my CPU in half, yes i know i could change that but i still don't like it, and i don't like Linux because of the Debian-Fiasko, and OpenSSL is terrible because of heartbleed ;)

It'll be a bit different, FreeBSD doesn't have vmd but it does have bhyve.

> Docker is the killer app feature keeping me on Linux.

Agreed.

Docker (or another OCI compatible solution) feels like one of the few good ways to run software with all of its dependencies consistently across different systems/OSes: you can generally develop things on macOS, Windows or Linux and run your containers with reasonable amounts of confidence in everything working as expected.

No longer must you worry as much about what the host OS will be for your business webapp to run, nor are you tied down to an old OS version just because of some dependency not being present/working on the latest one, or even need to worry as much about updating the host with the potential to break something (at least something other than the container runtime).

That said, it's always nice to have a decent amount of choice regarding the host OSes and see more support! Even other runtimes like Podman feel like a good sign.

Note: some of the aspects of containers have drawbacks, of course (and certain things can break due to FS differences, for example), about which I wrote on my blog, "Containers are broken": https://blog.kronis.dev/everything%20is%20broken/containers-...

There's a "yo dawg" joke in here somewhere.

Having to prepare container specific folders on the Docker host to run stuff is a bit annoying. Surely you can map these from the local BSD machine?

you'd probably need to either use a sidecar injection mechanism like mutagen, or you would have to pass thru the filesystem to the underlying vm at a high enough level such that docker could access all the directories.

nfs?

9p? Namespaces..

I still dont understand why one would spend the time to switch to BSD.

Is it really incomprehensible that people like a BSD better than Linux?

Along the lines of "BSD is for people who love Unix, Linux is for people who hate Microsoft."

Actually it is, at least these days.

I tried to use BSD for the past 20 years just to keep my knowledge up to date but only on hobby machines and never for work but frankly gave up using it within the past 5 years.

I don't care about the philosophies as they don't seem to bring much benefit.

What actual benefit do you see with being "more unified"? I never understood that part.

"Better doc" isn't even practical when you google around, you get all the Linux gotchas solved already by someone else when you get far less info on BSD.

And then lack of packages and environments like Docker and Homebrew and all I see is limitations.

The only thing I miss is probably pf firewall but unless I'm running a router to utilize more rules than simple port allowances, ufw is fine enough.

zfs on Ubuntu is darn easy to get started and I just lost much reason to stay with BSD.

And considering that I want to setup monitoring, logging and backing up to a central server to be aligned with other servers, things get pretty tough too.

There were several related topics.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32369189

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31664952

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30057549

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22852316

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22024881

I spent the time for OpenBSD because I want greater security and control over when to make changes that could have a security impact. In other words, "secure by default", and only 2 of the worst kind of security bugs since ~1996, are very impressive. Plus I find it a good learning system, as things are well ordered and the documentation is reliable, if one follows the docs and is willing to learn.

Of course, there might be features or handholding missing that would make one prefer something else. (Features missing might include bluetooth, maybe some usb things, point-and-click printer setup, ZFS, but I haven't missed these much.) Also there is a somewhat recent change that makes the system use full CPU all the time (not ratcheting up/down with the load), until one configures it otherwise (as I understand, anyway--in the coming 7.2 release there is a package one can install, or build/install now from source, that I understand works around this).

To quote another discussion thread: "They develop this software for themselves first. If you like it and it’s useful to you you are welcome to it. If not, look elsewhere. That’s been their working philosophy all along and if you ask me that’s what makes it so great to use. Every piece of the system is carefully thought out and organized so it doesn’t suffer from nearly as much feature creep as other systems." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250567

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