Container World 2016: Application and Machine Containers (slides)

I had the opportunity to speak at Container World 2016 in Santa Clara yesterday.  Thanks in part to the Netflix guys who preceded me, the room was absolutely packed!

You can download a PDF of my slides here, or flip through them embedded below.

I'd really encourage you to try the demo instructions of LXD toward the end!


:-Dustin

ZFS Licensing and Linux

We at Canonical have conducted a legal review, including discussion with the industry's leading software freedom legal counsel, of the licenses that apply to the Linux kernel and to ZFS.

And in doing so, we have concluded that we are acting within the rights granted and in compliance with their terms of both of those licenses.  Others have independently achieved the same conclusion.  Differing opinions exist, but please bear in mind that these are opinions.

While the CDDL and GPLv2 are both "copyleft" licenses, they have different scope.  The CDDL applies to all files under the CDDL, while the GPLv2 applies to derivative works.

The CDDL cannot apply to the Linux kernel because zfs.ko is a self-contained file system module -- the kernel itself is quite obviously not a derivative work of this new file system.

And zfs.ko, as a self-contained file system module, is clearly not a derivative work of the Linux kernel but rather quite obviously a derivative work of OpenZFS and OpenSolaris.  Equivalent exceptions have existed for many years, for various other stand alone, self-contained, non-GPL kernel modules.

Our conclusion is good for Ubuntu users, good for Linux, and good for all of free and open source software.

As we have already reached the conclusion, we are not interested in debating license compatibility, but of course welcome the opportunity to discuss the technology.

Cheers,
Dustin

EDIT: This post was updated to link to the supportive position paper from Eben Moglen of the SFLC, an amicus brief from James Bottomley, as well as the contrarian position from Bradley Kuhn and the SFC.

ZFS is *the* FS for Containers in Ubuntu 16.04!

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) is only a few short weeks away, and with it comes one of the most exciting new features Linux has seen in a very long time...

ZFS -- baked directly into Ubuntu -- supported by Canonical.

What is ZFS?

ZFS is a combination of a volume manager (like LVM) and a filesystem (like ext4, xfs, or btrfs).

ZFS one of the most beloved features of Solaris, universally coveted by every Linux sysadmin with a Solaris background.  To our delight, we're happy to make to OpenZFS available on every Ubuntu system.  Ubuntu's reference guide for ZFS can be found here, and these are a few of the killer features:

• snapshots
• copy-on-write cloning
• continuous integrity checking against data corruption
• automatic repair
• efficient data compression.

These features truly make ZFS the perfect filesystem for containers.

What does "support" mean?

• You'll find zfs.ko automatically built and installed on your Ubuntu systems.  No more DKMS-built modules!

$ locate zfs.ko
/lib/modules/4.4.0-4-generic/kernel/zfs/zfs/zfs.ko

• You'll see the module loaded automatically if you use it.

$ lsmod | grep zfs
zfs                  2801664  11
zunicode              331776  1 zfs
zcommon                57344  1 zfs
znvpair                90112  2 zfs,zcommon
spl                   102400  3 zfs,zcommon,znvpair
zavl                   16384  1 zfs

• The user space zfsutils-linux package will be included in Ubuntu Main, with security updates provided by Canonical (as soon as this MIR is completed).
• As always, industry leading, enterprise class technical support is available from Canonical with Ubuntu Advantage services.

How do I get started?

It's really quite simple!  Here's a few commands to get you up and running with ZFS and LXD in 60 seconds or less.

First, make sure you're running Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial).

$ head -n1 /etc/issue
Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch) \n \l

Now, let's install lxd and zfsutils-linux, if you haven't already:

$ sudo apt install lxd zfsutils-linux

Next, let's use the interactive lxd init command to setup LXD and ZFS.  In the example below, I'm simply using a sparse, loopback file for the ZFS pool.  For best results (and what I use on my laptop and production servers), it's best to use a raw SSD partition or device.

$ sudo lxd init
Name of the storage backend to use (dir or zfs): zfs
Create a new ZFS pool (yes/no)? yes
Name of the new ZFS pool: lxd
Would you like to use an existing block device (yes/no)? no
Size in GB of the new loop device (1GB minimum): 2
Would you like LXD to be available over the network (yes/no)? no 
LXD has been successfully configured.

We can check our ZFS pool now:

$ sudo zpool list
NAME   SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
lxd   1.98G   450K  1.98G         -     0%     0%  1.00x  ONLINE  -

$ sudo zpool status
  pool: lxd
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

        NAME                    STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
        lxd                     ONLINE       0     0     0
          /var/lib/lxd/zfs.img  ONLINE       0     0     0
errors: No known data errors

$ lxc config get storage.zfs_pool_name
storage.zfs_pool_name: lxd

Finally, let's import the Ubuntu LXD image, and launch a few containers.  Note how fast containers launch, which is enabled by the ZFS cloning and copy-on-write features:

$ newgrp lxd
$ lxd-images import ubuntu --alias ubuntu
Downloading the GPG key for http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com
Progress: 48 %
Validating the GPG signature of /tmp/tmpa71cw5wl/download.json.asc
Downloading the image.
Image manifest: http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/server/releases/trusty/release-20160201/ubuntu-14.04-server-cloudimg-amd64.manifest
Image imported as: 54c8caac1f61901ed86c68f24af5f5d3672bdc62c71d04f06df3a59e95684473
Setup alias: ubuntu

$ for i in $(seq 1 5); do lxc launch ubuntu; done
...
$ lxc list
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
|          NAME           |  STATE  |       IPV4        | IPV6 | EPHEMERAL | SNAPSHOTS |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| discordant-loria        | RUNNING | 10.0.3.130 (eth0) |      | NO        |         0 |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| fictive-noble           | RUNNING | 10.0.3.91 (eth0)  |      | NO        |         0 |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| interprotoplasmic-essie | RUNNING | 10.0.3.242 (eth0) |      | NO        |         0 |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| nondamaging-cain        | RUNNING | 10.0.3.9 (eth0)   |      | NO        |         0 |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+
| untreasurable-efrain    | RUNNING | 10.0.3.89 (eth0)  |      | NO        |         0 |
+-------------------------+---------+-------------------+------+-----------+-----------+

Super easy, right?

Cheers,
:-Dustin

Docker, Alpine, Ubuntu, and You

There's no shortage of excitement, controversy, and readership, any time you can work "Docker" into a headline these days.  Perhaps a bit like "Donald Trump", but for CIO tech blogs and IT news -- a real hot button.  Hey, look, I even did it myself in the title of this post!

Sometimes an article even starts out about CoreOS, but gets diverted into a discussion about Docker, like this one, where shykes (Docker's founder and CTO) announced that Docker's default image would be moving away from Ubuntu to Alpine Linux.

I have personally been Canonical's business and technical point of contact with Docker Inc, since September of 2013, when I co-presented at an OpenStack Meetup in Austin, Texas, with Ben Golub and Nick Stinemates of Docker.  I can tell you that, along with most of the rest of the Docker community, this casual declaration in an unrelated Hacker News thread, came as a surprise to nearly all of us!

Docker's default container image is certainly Docker's decision to make.  But it would be prudent to examine at a few facts:

(1) Check DockerHub and you may notice that while Busybox (Alpine Linux) has surpassed Ubuntu in the number downloads (66M to 40M), Ubuntu is still by far the most "popular" by number of "stars" -- likes, favorites, +1's, whatever, (3.2K to 499).

(2) Ubuntu's compressed, minimal root tarball is 59 MB, which is what is downloaded over the Internet.  That's different from the 188 MB uncompressed root filesystem, which has been quoted a number of times in the press.

(3) The real magic of Docker is such that you only ever download that base image, one time!  And you only store one copy of the uncompressed root filesystem on your disk! Just once, sudo docker pull ubuntu, on your laptop at home or work, and then launch thousands of images at a coffee shop or airport lounge with its spotty wifi.  Build derivative images, FROM ubuntu, etc. and you only ever store the incremental differences.

Actually, I encourage you to test that out yourself...  I just launched a t2.micro -- Amazon's cheapest instance type with the lowest networking bandwidth.  It took 15.938s to sudo apt install docker.io.  And it took 9.230s to sudo docker pull ubuntu.  It takes less time to download Ubuntu than to install Docker!

ubuntu@ip-172-30-0-129:~⟫ time sudo apt install docker.io -y
...
real    0m15.938s
user    0m2.146s
sys     0m0.913s

As compared to...

ubuntu@ip-172-30-0-129:~⟫ time sudo docker pull ubuntu
latest: Pulling from ubuntu
f15ce52fc004: Pull complete 
c4fae638e7ce: Pull complete 
a4c5be5b6e59: Pull complete 
8693db7e8a00: Pull complete 
ubuntu:latest: The image you are pulling has been verified. Important: image verification is a tech preview feature and should not be relied on to provide security.
Digest: sha256:457b05828bdb5dcc044d93d042863fba3f2158ae249a6db5ae3934307c757c54
Status: Downloaded newer image for ubuntu:latest
real    0m9.230s
user    0m0.021s
sys     0m0.016s

Now, sure, it takes even less than that to download Alpine Linux (0.747s by my test), but again you only ever do that once!  After you have your initial image, launching Docker containers take the exact same amount of time (0.233s) and identical storage differences.  See:

ubuntu@ip-172-30-0-129:/tmp/docker⟫ time sudo docker run alpine /bin/true
real    0m0.233s
user    0m0.014s
sys     0m0.001s

ubuntu@ip-172-30-0-129:/tmp/docker⟫ time sudo docker run ubuntu /bin/true
real    0m0.234s
user    0m0.012s
sys     0m0.002s

(4) I regularly communicate sincere, warm congratulations to our friends at Docker Inc, on its continued growth.  shykes publicly mentioned the hiring of the maintainer of Alpine Linux in that Hacker News post.  As a long time Linux distro developer myself, I have tons of respect for everyone involved in building a high quality Linux distribution.  In fact, Canonical employs over 700 people, in 44 countries, working around the clock, all calendar year, to make Ubuntu the world's most popular Linux OS.  Importantly, that includes a dedicated security team that has an outstanding track record over the last 12 years, keeping Ubuntu servers, clouds, desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones up-to-date and protected against the latest security vulnerabilities.  I don't know personally Natanael, but I'm intimately aware of what a spectacular amount of work it is to maintain and secure an OS distribution, as it makes its way into enterprise and production deployments.  Good luck!

(5) There are currently 5,854 packages available via apk in Alpine Linux (sudo docker run alpine apk search -v).  There are 8,862 packages in Ubuntu Main (officially supported by Canonical), and 53,150 binary packages across all of Ubuntu Main, Universe, Restricted, and Multiverse, supported by the greater Ubuntu community.  Nearly all 50,000+ packages are updated every 6 months, on time, every time, and we release an LTS version of Ubuntu and the best of open source software in the world every 2 years.  Like clockwork.  Choice.  Velocity.  Stability.  That's what Ubuntu brings.

Docker holds a special place in the Ubuntu ecosystem, and Ubuntu has been instrumental in Docker's growth over the last 3 years.  Where we go from here, is largely up to the cross-section of our two vibrant communities.

And so I ask you honestly...what do you want to see?  How would you like to see Docker and Ubuntu operate together?

I'm Canonical's Product Manager for Ubuntu Server, I'm responsible for Canonical's relationship with Docker Inc, and I will read absolutely every comment posted below.

Cheers,
:-Dustin

p.s. I'm speaking at Container Summit in New York City today, and wrote this post from the top of the (inspiring!) One World Observatory at the World Trade Center this morning.  Please come up and talk to me, if you want to share your thoughts (at Container Summit, not the One World Observatory)!