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Does Docker work in the same way as Solaris/Illumos zones, or FreeBSD Jails (or Verio's equivalent [1])? Docker appears to add portability, but no security.

I ask as virtualising this way (thinking about secure shared hosting) is of interest to me, vs multiple VMs, and I'm curious about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

[1] http://support.verio.com/files/pdf/FreeBSD_VPS_v3_Technical_...

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Docker is built on-top of Linux Containers (LXC). These provide a secure isolated environment within Linux.

http://www.activestate.com/blog/2011/11/security-cloud-stack...

Thanks philwhln, I'd understood that much :) I guess I'm asking: What would be the selling point of using Docker (LXC) over Jails/Zones?

You can run the full-stack inside a container. eg. run Red Hat or CentOS inside Ubuntu. The process inside LXC / Docker is unaware it's inside a container. You can have 100 processes all think they're binding to a given port, which simplifies things within the container. This is why docker images work so well: they can be fired up and use the same configuration no matter how many instances you create. LXC = jail on steroids.

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