Docker containers

[JorgeA]

I just read about this:

 

Microsoft puts Docker on Windows clients

 

Microsoft said today that users can now run Docker inside a Windows machine and manage Linux-based containers with the new Docker Command Line Interface for Windows. The news follows up on Microsoft and Docker’s recent partnership to ensure that Docker can run nicely on the Azure cloud and Windows Server.

 

Previously, there wasn’t a standard way to get Docker running on Windows, and developers had to either use a Linux-based client CLI or the boot2docker application that sets up a customized virtual machine on a Windows machine that contains the Docker daemon, wrote Khalid Mouss, a Microsoft senior program manager for Azure Compute Runtime, in a blog post detailing the news.

 

While these jerry-rigged methods work, developers now have a Microsoft-blessed way to run Docker and can cut out extra steps.

 

Is anybody here familiar with this technology? I'm curious as to what possibilities (if any) it might present for, say, running Windows applications in a non-Windows OS. Now, or eventually.

 

--JorgeA

 

P.S. Mods: Please move if there is a more appropriate sub-forum for this, thanks.

 

[JorgeA]

Wow, nobody knows anything about this??

 

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Wow, nobody knows anything about this??

No.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html

 

Maybe you should first ask (yourself or on the forum if you can't find an answer by your own) the question:

WHAT is docker?

https://www.docker.com/whatisdocker/

 

Since noone (except maybe a handful of people) can understand anything in the mumble-jumble that is proposed there as if it was an actual answer to the question, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to answer you.

 

The only snippet on that page that makes some (little) sense to me is the part answering the question:

How is this different from Virtual Machines?

 

The interesting page:

https://www.docker.com/resources/usecases/

contains pearls such as:

We are accelerating our continuous delivery process by leveraging Docker containers for testing and deployment, and internal teams who have switched to Helios, our open sourced and Docker-powered platform, are experiencing productivity gains within weeks of adoption.

 

and:

They replaced several AWS AMIs with a single bare metal host running Docker to speed up their Jenkins-based continuous delivery pipeline.

 

 

 

which - apart the abuse of acronyms - may well be submitted to next Vogon's Poetry Yearly Award.

 

Maybe soon someone will be able to post on their site in plain enough English, thus allowing some more mere mortals to understand what (the heck) they are talking about.

 

All in all however, it seems to me like the idea is NOT to run (say) existing Windows applications in a non-Windows OS, but rather to run "Docker applications" (whatever they are, but seemingly basically Linux originated programs/scripts) by putting them into a container and have the container (and thus the application inside it) run *everywhere*.

 

jaclaz

[bphlpt]

I'm curious as to what possibilities (if any) it might present for, say, running Windows applications in a non-Windows OS. Now, or eventually.

 

Primarily by looking at the quote you provided, I agree with jaclaz:

 

... it seems to me like the idea is NOT to run (say) existing Windows applications in a non-Windows OS, but rather to run "Docker applications" (whatever they are, but seemingly basically Linux originated programs/scripts) by putting them into a container and have the container (and thus the application inside it) run *everywhere*.

In other words, reversed from the potential possibility you were asking about.

Cheers and Regards

Edited December 2, 2014 by bphlpt

[JorgeA]

bphlpt and jaclaz:

 

Thank you for the info and analysis, this jibes with what I thought... even down to how utterly vague it all sounds right now.

 

Obviously I was (wishfully) thinking that this technology might offer a way to wean oneself from Windows while still being able to use Windows applications. I do know that there's WINE for that, but was hoping that this Docker might become an easier, more convenient, or more reliable way to do the same thing.

 

I'll keep an eye on it.

 

--JorgeA

[ROTS]

So a docker is another way of saying emulator???

Like how millions of people play Nintendo games for years on their desktop computer. Thus you can create a bat file and run that program(game ) via the emulator in the OS environment.

Another way of saying is that a docker is like "Wine-Bottler" a program that could run litterally many Windows programs while OS Tiger PPC was on 4.7. But since forsaken 4.11 the support of Wine-Bottler has been removed ( among other programs that do not run right anymore ). So now I can't run Wine Programs through the "Bottler" program ( emulator ) itself.

What does the cloud ( P2P whatever stupid name ) have to do with this???? That is what I do not get????????

Edited December 28, 2014 by ROTS

[jaclaz]

What does the cloud ( P2P whatever stupid name ) have to do with this???? That is what I do not get????????

 

Some news:

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/06/23/docker-and-microsoft-announce-more-innovation-to-cross-platforms-and-win-hearts

 

jaclaz

[jaclaz]

Someone is going against the general trend of awe towards Docker (just for the record):

http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2v4fqe/docker_is_fundamentally_flawed_useless_hype

http://iops.io/blog/docker-hype/

 

Though both the article and comments are rather technical, the cited comment on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2v4fqe/docker_is_fundamentally_flawed_useless_hype/coeo7c7

seems to me like a good summing up of the risks of using this kind of technologies (not necessarily and specifically Docker, but the whole idea of containerization) for *everything*:

 

The biggest problem I have with things like containerization tools and such is that it's simply another way of allowing developers to be lazy with their platforms.
The largest problem we have in operational IT right now is the rigid requirement of versioning with libraries. Tools like docker allow developers to run with all of the libraries they need to write whatever tools they want. Fast forward 10 years later and your little docker containers are still using the libraries that were included in the original.
The most famous example of this problem is the whole IE6 fiasco. But it equally exists with the Java platform. "We can't upgrade to Java 8 because it breaks the code we wrote for Java 6!" Ops: "Well, we need to upgrade for security!" DevOps: "Then use docker! it will allow our app to run in its own little environment with java 6 while you move the platform to Java 8!" Me: "I don't think you understand how this works..."
None of these containerization platforms solve this problem, and if anything, they only serve to extend and magnify it.
The problem these platforms try to solve is the different libraries on running platforms. In some cases, this could be upgraded libraries, different versions of the libraries, etc.
Docker only makes it worse by allowing companies to continue to maintain really poorly insecure applications running on ancient code libraries.

 

it seems like it is not the one-size-fits-all solution for *any* problem (which is more or less what most techs seem to believe).

 

jaclaz 

[jaclaz]

Some news, bocker (docker in 100 lines of bash), of course preliminary/highly experimental:

https://github.com/p8952/bocker

 

jaclaz

[jaclaz]

And it's only fair to link to someone which has different views on the thingy:

http://www.boycottdocker.org/

 

Whom actually, while comparing the pro and cons of Docker containers against VM's (Virtual Machines) and criticizing most of the design (or of the hype around it) writes seemingly in plain enough English thus allowing us "normal people" to get an idea of what it is. 

 

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

That critique sounds pretty devastating. Thanks for posting the link.

 

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

And some considerations on the "by design" feature that - in my simplicity - I find not exactly "desirable":
http://reventlov.com/advisories/using-the-docker-command-to-root-the-host
https://jmainguy.com/index.php/root-your-host-in-2-easy-steps-with-docker/
http://glaudiston.blogspot.it/2015/07/docker-security-not-so-perfect-as-it.html

jaclaz

Edited September 19, 2015 by jaclaz

[jaclaz]

A fresh update :
https://thehftguy.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/docker-in-production-an-history-of-failure/

jaclaz