Where is FreeNAS going with Docker in 2018?

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danb35

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...and it’s been there since 11.0. I doubt we’re going to see anything more than the current “Docker VM” solution any time soon, but I’ve been wrong before.
 

bigzaj

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Not to get myself in too much trouble, but I thought I'd chime in from a "probably not the target user" point of view. I have been evolving through servers for recreational use for the past 10 years, all simple stuff to serve up media and store family pictures, using hardware raid, etc. When I built my last server I was on the fence between Unraid and FreeNAS, really liked the docker implementation in Unraid (built a few for friends), really liked everything else with FreeNAS. I came over with Corral, thinking that would get me where I wanted to be... after a few bumps along the way I had a system with dockers working, just wildly unstable. I jumped over to 11.0 and 11.1 using jails and preparing for the day when I could migrate to dockers simply for ease of application management, seems like it is not really in the cards.

Simply put I chose FreeNAS under the belief that the foundation of the system was better and the GUI / Ease of Use and Setup would catch up. It appears the ease of use is going backwards with the iocage implementation and its begs the question, is FreeNAS intended to be only used by professionals and is this branched support of prosumer / home media apps and plugins just an inconvenience? Feels of late that people like me are always going to be swimming against the stream with FreeNAS.

Just my two cents.
 
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diskdiddler

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Simply put I chose FreeNAS under the belief that the foundation of the system was better and the GUI / Ease of Use and Setup would catch up. It appears the ease of use is going backwards with the iocage implementation and its begs the question, is FreeNAS intended to be only used by professionals and is this branched support of prosumer / home media apps and plugins just an inconvenience? Feels of late that people like me are always going to be swimming against the stream with FreeNAS.

Just my two cents.


What leads you to believe this?

I get the impression the docker implimentation will be mediocre but the iocage is seemingly going to be properly supported.
It will also, in theory, properly support VMs soon, allowing you to maintain a docker VM of your choice / version.
(Admitedly this is quite complicated and I too am not an extreme tech user, so this meddling around isn't as ideal as a streamlined system)

I'd prefer something basic, usable, getting more usable. I continue to have difficulty convincing friends to switch over.
 

danb35

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It will also, in theory, properly support VMs soon, allowing you to maintain a docker VM of your choice / version.
What "proper[] support" do you think FreeNAS is going to get for VMs that it doesn't have already?
It appears the ease of use is going backwards with the iocage implementation
The devs have decided to tie iocage to the new GUI, which is in a constant state of flux right now. I hope (and have some degree of trust) that by the time we see the full release, the jails GUI will be reasonably sorted, and you'll be able to create an iocage jail about as simply as you can currently create a warden jail in the old GUI. There's a plugins library for iocage, though it's only accessible through the CLI. But iocage also lets you do things like this and this: download a script, edit a few configuration settings, and run it to install and set up a jail with the desired collection of software. It's my understanding that the plugins are similar in concept--rather than the "plugin" being a large blob that needs to be rebuilt any time any of the software versions change, it's a list of the required software packages and instructions on how to set them up. This should make it easier to build plugins, and also avoid the issue we frequently see reported here of plugins being out of date.
 

diskdiddler

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What "proper[] support" do you think FreeNAS is going to get for VMs that it doesn't have already?

I don't know, I got the impression it's not final or not reliable, based on posts here and other sites. Is it to be improved?
I mean heck I had to fiddle to get a VM working on mine due to VNC configuration issues ( the VNC device resolution had to be changed manually) - not that it's a big issue.

Hopefully I'm wrong? It's solid as a rock?)


The devs have decided to tie iocage to the new GUI, which is in a constant state of flux right now. I hope (and have some degree of trust) that by the time we see the full release, the jails GUI will be reasonably sorted, and you'll be able to create an iocage jail about as simply as you can currently create a warden jail in the old GUI.

Exactly what I'm truly hoping for, very much so.



There's a plugins library for iocage, though it's only accessible through the CLI. But iocage also lets you do things like this and this: download a script, edit a few configuration settings, and run it to install and set up a jail with the desired collection of software. It's my understanding that the plugins are similar in concept--rather than the "plugin" being a large blob that needs to be rebuilt any time any of the software versions change, it's a list of the required software packages and instructions on how to set them up. This should make it easier to build plugins, and also avoid the issue we frequently see reported here of plugins being out of date.

Also what I've been told and truly hope for. My server is very weeny for processor power, so I'd like to continue using jails rather than VMs anyhow, the more plugins the better. If we can get the entire freshports library, rather than the tiny FreeNAS plugin library, good for me.

(Mind you qbittorrent hasn't been updated in 3 months, despite 4 emails from me to the porter)
 
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danb35

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If we can get the entire freshports library, rather than the tiny freenas plugin library, good for me.
I doubt we're going to get anywhere close to this--plugin scripts for the entire ports library. The ports library is there, of course, and you're free to install whatever you like in there. But even though building plugins under the new system is said to be easier, I doubt anyone has the time or inclination to build them for even a significant fraction of the packages out there.
I don't know, I got the impression it's not final or not reliable, based on posts here and other sites.
I haven't been following closely; I don't use my FreeNAS box as a VM host since VirtualBox support went away (I have two Proxmox boxes for that now). But it's my understanding that VM support is pretty much where it's going to be in terms of the implementation. There will of course be bugs to fix, and probably occasional features to add, but I don't think the basic implementation is expected to change significantly at this point.
 

Ericloewe

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I have a recent Nightly running on my backup. The iocage plugins stuff seems to work and there's already a dozen or so plugins to choose from. I guess time will tell how easy they are to update and how functional they are.
 

bigzaj

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Maybe this is the wrong point of view, but I think a big limitation is a dependence on the CLI. Corral got a lot wrong, but you could do quite a bit from the UI, having to edit scripts and run commands from the CLI (while learnable and manageable for most) is certainly a turn-off on a comparative basis to other platforms.
 

danb35

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I think a big limitation is a dependence on the CLI.
Certainly the scripts don't take the place of pushbutton plugins, though they do make "manual" (i.e., non-plugin) installations much easier than they otherwise would be. My understanding is that plugins under iocage are similar conceptually, in that they're the list of packages and configuration instructions, rather than a blob with everything already installed. But I'd expect GUI installation and configuration to be implemented when the new GUI sees final release (currently scheduled for 11.2, as I understand it).
 

Ericloewe

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vinchi007

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Love docker and rancher os however running them in VM is an insult. In 2018 - FreeNAS should focus their work on providing native docker capability on the host system.
 

Ericloewe

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Love docker and rancher os however running them in VM is an insult. In 2018 - FreeNAS should focus their work on providing native docker capability on the host system.
So, when are you going to merge your Linux system call table to FreeBSD?
 

JayG30

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So, when are you going to merge your Linux system call table to FreeBSD?

SmartOS (Joyent) did it. :p

Just a humble opinion, but I think they have the best implementation of Docker/containers/zones. Simple and powerful.
 

diskdiddler

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SmartOS (Joyent) did it. :p

Just a humble opinion, but I think they have the best implementation of Docker/containers/zones. Simple and powerful.

I'm sure they'd like to but it sounds kind of extremely complicated.

Is this something that FreeBSD team should be focusing on in the "one day!, hopefully?" pile, or something the FreeNAS team should worry about in the "in a very very long time, maybe" pile?
 

ovizii

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A back end management like Unraid is exactly what I'm looking for too. I simply want to unload my plugin solution to a docker based one.
 

diskdiddler

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I did a big google session yesterday afternoon regarding docker and FreeBSD and I'd have to guess it's not coming any time soon. They started work in 2014, soon dropped it, a few people have done random projects, those too have been mostly dropped.


It's a bit of a shame that all of them can't band together to work towards it (FreeBSD is open, isn't it?) but at the end of the day, when I buy a much better server, I'll be able to afford the resources to do it under a VM, hopefully.
 

brando56894

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Unless the RancherUI setup is a lot different than a base install, I find it complicated and a bit of a pain. I can't get console input to work when virtualizing FreeNAS, so I decided to setup RancherOS using the image file and also setting it up on Arch Linux. Once I got the UI setup, the post-setup process to even setup a container is kinda complex and I just gave up because it looked like it was more for an enterprise infrastructure instead of a home install. I will admit unRAID did have one of the best implementations that I seen, Docker wise.
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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I have the strong suspicion that one reason for the Corral disaster was that a certain CTO placed a bet on native FreeBSD Docker support early in the project and when that did not come found the project in jeopardy ...

It is far from trivial and there was a well presented talk at EuroBSDCon 2017 in Paris arguing that it would be a lot of wasted effort. Main reason being that a FreeBSD port would always be behind upstream Linux Docker desperately trying to reach feature parity in a highly agile environment. If you absolutely want/need Docker, run Linux. Just look at how frequently the Docker guys tend to rip out entire subsystems and replace them with something new ... AUFS, anyone? ;)

FreeBSD would need to implement every single new system call Docker uses. Not once, but forever.

Patrick
 

Ericloewe

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The problem isn't Docker itself. That's fairly easy.

The problem is that everything built around Docker is also built around Linux. That means Linux system calls and Linux things like epoll. The former is moderately hard, but requires a lot of work and involves a lot of brain-dead behavior that goes against what some system calls should obviously do. The latter is moderately hard, but requires a lot of work and involves a lot of brain-dead behavior that goes against what you'd expect and need the system to do.
 
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