docker and linux compatability issues

[Preetpal]

Alpine, which uses openRC, also has gained quite some traction especially as a base for containers or on small VMS/VPS. All our LX-Zones are also running Alpine.

What programming languages are the applications that you're running on Alpine Linux written in? I tried using Ruby in an Alpine Linux Docker container and it managed to crash reading an environment variable, consequently, I never tried Alpine Linux again (hopefully things are better, but I bet its compatibility isn't great).

 

[sko]

2 are running Java applications, one of them combined with lots of BASIS/BBj stuff. Both were set up by the vendors/contractors; none of them complained about problems. Another one is some pre-packaged-god-knows-what behemoth with precompiled binaries written in unknown languages and lots of shell scripts. Never bothered opening that can of worms by looking closer at it (if I did I'd have to support it in-house because "I know it").

Others are running mainly off-the-shelf software from the package repository or customized and self-compiled old versions of e.g. bind9 (IIRC 9.6 with some fixes for views and DNSSEC). They were only set up for quick migration of openVZ containers with services for our legacy infrastructure. Mostly the pre-compiled packages were just splat into the new zones with "make install" - thanks to the linux ABI being stable (stagnant) for years this worked very well as long as the libc was compatible. Those containers were/are bound to be retired anyways, so it really was only a matter of spending as little time as possible for the migration and focusing on building the new infrastructure instead. TBH they have been running far longer now than I intended/wished, but "the end is nigh"

We once tried running Zoneminder in an LX-zone (the FreeBSD port was non-functional back then IIRC), thanks to massive problems getting it working in the first place (Zoneminder is the archdemon of dependency hell...) and Zoneminder then being heavily unreliable, this idea was canned and we opted for a dedicated appliance. In retrospect I think the problems were mainly because Zoneminder needs a lot of its dependencies in exactly one specific version and often uses weird specific behaviour of that single version. I ended up compiling nearly everything from sources and the whole thing was extremely fragile. I think in such cases you can't really blame the underlying distro and its choice of software/package versions...
I've stumbled over some blog entry a while ago where someone actually documented installing Zoneminder in an LX-zone, so it seems to be "possible" (don't know how stable/reliable though)

 

[herrbischoff]

docker as a development thingy

That’s how I think about Docker as well. It’s an interesting toy, not terribly well executed but a working proof of concept nonetheless. Now, if only the direct development-to-production workflow wouldn’t be one of the major selling point of Docker… That’s why I don’t see any particular value in Docker for FreeBSD.

I think I missed the point when dumpster fires became a normal way of operations

Sadly, it’s at least been this way since Facebook declared “run fast and break things” to be their development strategy. Then, the JavaScript kiddies came and to this day try to invent everything anew, only worse this time.