2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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---
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title: "LXD: Containers for Human Beings"
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subtitle: "Docker's great and all, but I prefer the workflow of interacting with VMs"
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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date: 2023-08-11T16:30:00-04:00
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2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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categories:
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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- Technology
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2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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tags:
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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- Sysadmin
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- Containers
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- VMs
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- Docker
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- LXD
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2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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draft: true
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rss_only: false
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cover: ./cover.png
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---
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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This is a blog post version of a talk I presented at both Ubuntu Summit 2022 and
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2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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SouthEast LinuxFest 2023. The first was not recorded, but the second was and is
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on [SELF's PeerTube instance.][selfpeertube] I apologise for the terrible, but
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there's unfortunately nothing I can do about that.
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[selfpeertube]: https://peertube.linuxrocks.online/w/hjiTPHVwGz4hy9n3cUL1mq?start=1m
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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{{< adm type="warn" >}}
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**Note:** Canonical has decided to [pull LXD out][lxd] from under the Linux
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Containers entity and instead continue development under the Canonical brand.
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The majority of the LXD creators and developers have congregated around
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[Incus.][inc] I'll be keeping a close eye on the project and intend to migrate
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as soon as there's an installable release.
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[lxd]: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/
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[inc]: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/
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{{< /adm >}}
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2023-06-25 20:18:31 +00:00
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## The benefits of VMs and containers
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- **Isolation:** we don't want an attacker to get into our webserver and be able
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to gain access to our email server
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- **Flexibility:** <abbr title="Virtual Machines">VMs</abbr> and containers only
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use the resources they've been given
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- **Portability:** once set up and configured, VMs and containers can mostly be
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treated as black boxes; as long as the surrounding environment is similar to
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the previous in terms of communication, they can just be picked up and dropped
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on bare metal servers as necessary.
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- **Density:**
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- **Cleanliness:**
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2023-07-18 17:21:24 +00:00
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## Virtual machines
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```goat
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.---------------------------------.
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| .-------. .-------. .-------. |
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| | Guest | | Guest | | Guest | |
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| | OS | | OS | | OS | |
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| .---+---' .---+---' .---+---' |
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| .--+----. .--+----. .--+----. |
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| | Guest | | Guest | | Guest | |
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| | Kernel | | Kernel | | Kernel | |
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| .---+---' .---+---' .---+---' |
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| .--+----------+----------+----. |
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| | Hypervisor | |
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| .--------------+--------------' |
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| .-------------+---------------. |
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| | Host Kernel | |
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| .-----------------------------' |
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.---------------------------------'
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```
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## Containers
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```goat
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Application containers System containers
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.---------------------------------. .------------------------------.
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| .-------. .-------. .-------. | | .------. .------. .------. |
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| | App 01 | | App 02 | | App 03 | | | | Guest | | Guest | | Guest | |
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| '---+---' '---+---' '---+---' | | | OS | | OS | | OS | |
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| .--+----------+----------+----. | | '---+--' '---+--' '---+--' |
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| | Hypervisor | | | .--+---------+---------+---. |
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| '--------------+--------------' | | | Host Kernel | |
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| .-------------+---------------. | | '--------------------------' |
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| | Host Kernel | | '------------------------------'
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| '-----------------------------' |
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'---------------------------------'
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2023-07-18 17:21:24 +00:00
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```
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## When to use which
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### Virtual machines
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- Virtualising esoteric hardware
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- Virtualising non-Linux operating systems (Windows, macOS)
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- Completely isolating processes from one another with a decades-old, battle-tested technique
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2023-08-16 19:34:57 +00:00
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{{< adm type="note" >}}
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See Drew DeVault's blog post [_In praise of qemu_](https://earl.run/rmBs) for a great use of VMs
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{{< /adm >}}
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2023-07-18 17:21:24 +00:00
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### Application containers
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- Microservices
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- Extremely reproducible builds
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- (NixOS.org would likely be a better fit though)
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- Dead-set on using cloud platforms with extreme scaling capabilities (AWS, GCP, etc.)
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- When the app you want to run is _only_ distributed as a Docker container and
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the maintainers adamantly refuse to support any other deployment method
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- (Docker does run in LXD 😉)
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### System containers
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- Anything not listed above 👍
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## Crash course to LXD
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1. Install snap following [Canonical's tutorial](https://earl.run/ZvUK)
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- LXD is natively packaged for Arch and Alpine, but configuration can be a massive headache.
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2. `sudo snap install lxd`
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3. `lxd init`
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4. `lxc image copy images:debian/11 local: --alias deb-11`
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5. `lxc launch deb-11 container-name`
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6. `lxc shell container-name`
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