Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017)

Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by matharmin on Monday April 06, 2020 @05:36PM (#22798134)

I feel nowadays containers generally refer to the concept, and cgroups and namespaces are the implementation details of a specific container runtime. These are very important implementation details for security and performance, but it doesn't fundamentally impact how you structure your containerized application.

You can take the same container image, and run using Docker, Firecracker, gVisor, or many other container runtimes. Some of them are exactly "like a VM, but lighter".

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by cmckn on Monday April 06, 2020 @06:17PM (#22798435)

Agreed. The post feels a bit pedantic; I don't know any dev doing "cool things" with the underlying namespaces/cgroups. They're just using Docker. De-mystifying containers has value, but so does the abstraction.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by mav3rick on Monday April 06, 2020 @08:39PM (#22799324)

The abstraction muddles the performance, security etc. impact of these two models. Not knowing them is going to be bad in the long run. Not everyone is a web dev.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by moomin on Monday April 06, 2020 @09:04PM (#22799455)

Plenty of them using those features, if they’re using Kubernetes, Docker Swarm or especially Istio.

They might not know they are, but that’s besides the point.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by jdmichal on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @01:18PM (#22805262)

> They might not know they are, but that’s besides the point.

I actually thought that was exactly the point here...

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by bregma on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @07:49AM (#22802341)

Your personal ignorance makes a poor argument.

Not only do I know several devs doing cool things with namespaces and cgroup, but I myself have done cool things with namespaces and cgroups.

I played with Docker briefly, but it has no real practical application in my line of work.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by mav3rick on Monday April 06, 2020 @08:41PM (#22799337)

And I'm a dev "doing cool things" with namespaces / cgroups.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by mav3rick on Monday April 06, 2020 @08:38PM (#22799319)

Please don't propagate this. Running in a hypervisor with a possible different kernel vs running on the same kernel in the same ring as the host are two very different things. Implications of these are very different.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by imtringued on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @03:21AM (#22801041)

From the perspective of the developer there is no difference. They just configure kubernetes or docker to use a different Container runtime and keep using the same compose files, etc.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by simonh on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @04:40AM (#22801429)

I think the point the OPs was making is that yes, as you say, developers can use containers without knowing these differences, but that there are actually real and important differences and maybe it would be better if more devs were aware of them.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by mav3rick on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @05:08AM (#22801571)

Yes exactly.

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Re:Containers vs. Zones vs. Jails vs. VMs (2017) by pydry on Tuesday April 07, 2020 @07:15AM (#22802172)

I've had bugs when doing webdev stuff in docker that didn't crop up under one kernel that cropped up when using another. It's rare but it happens.

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