Call for Testing: Docker 1.0.1 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty)

Docker 1.0.1 is available for testing, in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS!

Docker 1.0.1 has landed in the trusty-proposed archive, which we hope to SRU to trusty-updates very soon.  We would love to have your testing feedback, to ensure both upgrades from Docker 0.9.1, as well as new installs of Docker 1.0.1 behave well, and are of the highest quality you have come to expect from Ubuntu's LTS  (Long Term Stable) releases!  Please file any bugs or issues here.

Moreover, this new version of the Docker package now installs the Docker binary to /usr/bin/docker, rather than /usr/bin/docker.io in previous versions. This should help Ubuntu's Docker package more closely match the wealth of documentation and examples available from our friends upstream.

A big thanks to Paul Tagliamonte, James Page, Nick Stinemates, Tianon Gravi, and Ryan Harper for their help upstream in Debian and in Ubuntu to get this package updated in Trusty!  Also, it's probably worth mentioning that we're targeting Docker 1.1.2 (or perhaps 1.2.0) for Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic), which will release on October 23, 2014.

Here are a few commands that might help your testing...

Check What Candidate Versions are Available

$ sudo apt-get update

$ apt-cache show docker.io | grep ^Version:

If that shows 0.9.1~dfsg1-2 (as it should), then you need to enable the trusty-proposed pocket.

$ echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-proposed universe" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

$ sudo apt-get update

$ apt-cache show docker.io | grep ^Version:

And now you should see the new version, 1.0.1~dfsg1-0ubuntu1~ubuntu0.14.04.1, available (probably in addition to 1.0.1~dfsg1-0ubuntu1~ubuntu0.14.04.1).

Upgrades

Check if you already have Docker installed, using:

$ dpkg -l docker.io

If so, you can simply upgrade.

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

And now, you can check your Docker version:

$ sudo dpkg -l docker.io | grep -m1 ^ii | awk '{print $3}'

0.9.1~dfsg1-2

New Installations

You can simply install the new package with:

$ sudo apt-get install docker.io

And ensure that you're on the latest version with:

$ dpkg -l docker.io | grep -m1 ^ii | awk '{print $3}'
1.0.1~dfsg1-0ubuntu1~ubuntu0.14.04.1

Running Docker

If you're already a Docker user, you probably don't need these instructions.  But in case you're reading this, and trying Docker for the first time, here's the briefest of quick start guides :-)

$ sudo docker pull ubuntu
$ sudo docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash

And now you're running a bash shell inside of an Ubuntu Docker container.  And only bash!

root@1728ffd1d47b:/# ps -ef
UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root         1     0  0 13:42 ?        00:00:00 /bin/bash
root         8     1  0 13:43 ?        00:00:00 ps -ef

If you want to do something more interesting in Docker, well, that's whole other post ;-)

:-Dustin

(Re-)Introducing JeOS -- Just Enough OS, aka Ubuntu Core

Lean.  Agile.  Svelte.  Lithe.  Free.

That's how we roll our operating systems in this modern, bountiful era of broadly deployed virtual machines, densely packed with system containers.

Linux, and more generally free software, is a natural fit in this model where massive scale is the norm.  And particularly Ubuntu (with its solid Debian base), is perfectly suited to this brave new world.

Introduced in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy) -- November 19, 2007, in fact -- JeOS (pronounced, "juice") was the first of its kind.  An absolutely bare minimal variant of the Ubuntu Server, tailored to perfection for virtual machines and appliances.  Just enough OS.

Taken aback, I overheard a technical executive at a Fortune 50 company say this week:

"What ever happened to that Ubuntu JeOS thing?  We keep looking at CoreOS and Atomic, but what we really want is just a bare minimal Ubuntu server."

Somehow, somewhere along the line, an important message a got lost.  I hope we can correct that now...

JeOS has been here all along, in fact.  You've been able to deploy a daily, minimal Ubuntu image, all day, every single day for most of the the last decade.  Sure, it changed names to Ubuntu Core along the way, but it's still the same sleek little beloved ubuntu-minimal distribution.

"How minimal?", you ask...

63 MB compressed, to be precise.

Did you get that?

That's 63 MB, including a package management system, with one-line, apt-get access to over 30,000 freely available packages across the Ubuntu universe.

That's pretty darn small.  Much smaller than say, 165 MB or 268 MB (which, to be fair, includes a bit more of an operating system -- much closer to say the standard Ubuntu Cloud Image, which is a 176 MB root tarball, or with kernel at 243 MB).

"How useful could such a small image actually be, in practice?", you might ask...

Ask any Docker user, for starters.  Docker's base Ubuntu image has been downloaded over 775,260 to date.  And this image is built directly from the Ubuntu Core amd64 tarball.

Oh, and guess what else?  Ubuntu Core is available for more than just the amd64 architecture!  It's also available for i386, armhf, arm64, powerpc, and ppc64el.  Which is pretty cool, particularly for embedded systems.

So next time you're looking for just enough operating system, just look to the core.  Ubuntu Core.  There is truly no better starting point ;-)

Enjoy,
:-Dustin

Learn Byobu in 10 minutes while listening to Mozart

If you're interested in learning how to more effectively use your terminal as your integrated devops environment, consider taking 10 minutes and watching this video while enjoying the finale of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, Allegro Assai (part of which is rumored to have inspired Beethoven's 5th).

I'm often asked for a quick-start guide, to using Byobu effectively.  This wiki page is a decent start, as is the manpage, and the various links on the upstream website.  But it seems that some of the past screencast videos have had the longest lasting impressions to Byobu users over the years.

I was on a long, international flight from Munich to Newark this past Saturday with a bit of time on my hands, and I cobbled together this instructional video.    That recent international trip to Nuremberg inspired me to rediscover Mozart, and I particularly like this piece, which Mozart wrote in 1788, but sadly never heard performed.  You can hear it now, and learn how to be more efficient in command line environments along the way :-)

Enjoy!

:-Dustin