Three Container Systems for Linux

In todays video I am showing the differences between three container (and one virtual machine) solution. All of which are open source, but they all have very different purposes for when to use them. I included a demo of creating and using LXD/LXC containers on Proxmox as well as using Incus a next generation replacement for LXD and LXC. Incus also includes the ability to create virtual machines using KVM and QEMU.

I have tested Incus on both x86_64 and Arm64 architectures and it seems to work just fine with either one of them (although the performance of course is very different for an $89 ARM64 machine).

Contents
00:00 - Intro
00:42 - Containers
00:45 - System vs Application Containers
08:35 - Incus
10:45 - Final Thoughts
11:26 - Demo LXD and Incus
11:37 - Proxmox LXC Demo
16:36 - Incus Demo
17:28 - Incus Walkthrough
25:25 - Wrapup

Hardware
AMD Rysen Machine (Currently Unplugged)
Odroid N2+
Raspberry Pi 4

Network

Video Equipment
Panasonic GH4 Camera

Audio Equipment

Software
Rogue Amoeba Audio Hijack 3
Rogue Ameoba Loopback

Follow me:
Twitter @djware55

#Docker #LXD #Incus

[sergiuoanes]

The fact that I can use Incus without being forced to use snap, was a big deal. I migrated all my lab over Incus containers. Super happy with it.

[theplaymakerno]

My favorite person on YouTube, again giving us some very valuable information.

[anonymous.youtuber]

❤ the sound it makes when creating 20 containers.

[stepannovotny]

Finally, a USEFUL analysis on YouTube! Thank you, thank you thanks! (Good enough to watch twice. Grrr!)

[luigitech]

Docker is the standard for many OSS projects and also docker-compose simplify a lot the setup

[esra_erimez]

My firm closely looked at LXC/LXD, but we Docker since there are a lot more Ci/CD tools that support it out of the box. Also, podman was a nonstarter for us at the time and it seems that the recent events at Red Hat proved us right.

[mercster]

I left enterprise computing long before all this container/mass virtualization stuff became cool. I remember trying to get management to go with IBM z/System virtualization to replace a bunch of ageing HP9000 servers in the early 2000s... but it pretty much ended there. I've used VMWare/VirtualBox for little things. I don't need containers for anything, really...of course I rent a VPS which is a container of some sort, I'm sure.

Also, I sent you a message on Patreon, you have my name wrong in the credits. :-) No worries... Merry Christmas.

[mitchharpur]

Thanks for the overview ... very helpful

[cjmoss]

4:51 Docker has long been able to passthrough specific devices for use of the applications in the containers.

[eugenesmirnov]

Great vid, as always. One Q lasts. Why not use nested docker under LXC?
Even KASM works pretty fine, in my view.

[antonk]

recently i seen you video about unix philosophy, and its make me wonder - does docker really a good medium for micro-service architecture? its not really good at isolation - from security standpoint at least, but there are system and language package managers now which could solve dll hell in a better way, and docker networking (and wrapping every micro-service with web server) looks like overkill to me (comparing to unix-way piping at least). so may be now its possible to build better micro-service apps with unix approach without docker?

p.s. as alternative to docker there is Singularity from HPC world, looks like they solve at least some docker problems

[stepannovotny]

Incus ...yeah it's time to update your video every 2 weeks!

[QazCetelic]

3:42 What do you mean by “enterprise level applications”? Is it related to performance, reliability or security? Or is it perhaps referring to certain applications that are not distributed as Docker containers?

[LuisgiXD]

Docker might be great for small home servers and small business, but for enterprise? K8s removed support from docker a couple of versions ago. Running docker swarm is just not as flexible as other orchestration solutions.

I think just skipping docker entirely and move to k8s is easier. The initial jump might be harder, but managing network, images, volumes is easier

[gshingles]

I've been using LXD since Ubuntu 18.04 at least and have been very happy with it as a replacement for full size VMs running Linux hosts.
I'm not sure I understand your point about it not being easy to migrate between systems. Unless you mean different CPU architectures, I have had machine to machine live transfers working (but I haven't had a need for that in a while since containerisation let me put everything I need on one host), or at least exporting snapshots and importing them on another host is easy enough.
I'll definitely check out Incus, thanks :)

[anon_y_mousse]

To clarify, you can still run a virtual machine without the KVM device, but it'll be slower than molasses in an industrial freezer. Some systems are easy to emulate, but x86 is not one of them, and that's why most VM's don't actually emulate but act as hypervisors to segregate what they're running from the rest of the system. It still makes me laugh a bit every time I think about using Bochs 20 years ago to run Win98 and it took minutes to boot the system.

[solidwire]

Ahh.. a political engineer... 😊. Interesting the way you split-up the virtualization tech.
System containers & App containers.
What makes me Crazy is the whimsical use of terminology VM virtual machine.
Making it needlessly challenging to compare virtualization offerings.
If the operation abstraction makes it so a foreign OS can't boot, it's a container.
LXC instances are containers... It's in the name!
I want to... we all should have the option to... Run "to the metal" hypervisor that runs containers/pods & VM's side by side.
So many claim to have this ability but few actually do...
Harvester, Talos Linux both accomplish this with K8S & KubeVirt. All are Kubernetes based solutions.
Will be nice to see if Incus team will produce something that won't choke while becoming a scattered mess while scaling like Proxmox.
The Proxmox fans simply haven't attempted scaling it without 3-5 bandaids. And still... Try changing the configuration... Wadda mess it becomes.
One may balance an elephant on a toothpick for a millisecond but it doesn't make it a viable solution.

[jarrodurban]

Docker, LXD/LXC, Incus/LXC might be a more clear title.

[dazealex]

Where may I buy that Nixxi Tube Clock?

[northwanderer]

I found the turnkey apps really out of date and unmaintained but maybe it’s changed.. I just end up loading Ubuntu or Debian on a lxc and running one app per lxc.. been solid so far.. getting my 580 gpu passed through was a pain in the butt but got it working eventually