My application using a kernal module for its process. Now we are moving to cloud and I have created our application as docker image(RHEL). Currently installed kernal module in host and shareing the location using -v option. But we need to install the kernal module inside the container and make our application to independent image. Though containers are meant only user space applications and not kernal space need to install kernal module inside container. Any way to achieve this please let me know
You can't really install kernel modules from inside a container. This is generally prohibited since the kernel module would escape the container environment; even if you ran a privileged container, the requirement that the module has to be built for the exact version the host kernel is using would make it almost impossible to build a portable image.
If your application needs a specific kernel module to run, you either need to install it on the host or run the application in a virtual machine. You mention "moving to cloud" and it's possible that running this application outside of a container on a dedicated general-purpose compute instance (e.g., an AWS EC2 instance) is enough isolation for your needs.
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I have below Dockerfile"
FROM openjdk:12.0.2
EXPOSE 8080
ADD ./build/libs/*.jar app.jar
ENTRYPOINT ["java","-jar","/app.jar"]
The resulting Docker image encapsulates Java program. When I deploy this Docker image to Windows Server or Linux, does the image always include OS like Linux which runs on top of host OS (Windows Server or Linux) ?
I am asking this question in the sense of Docker image being physical box which contains other boxes (one being openjdk), does this box also contain Linux OS box that I can pull out of it ( assuming if this was possible) and install it as Linux OS on empty machine?
That depends on what you call the "OS". It will always contain stuff from the distribution image, it is built on.
For example, a debian based images will include apt and other debian-specific tools. But most of the stuff you need on a "complete" machine (as in non-container), will have been removed to keep the image as small as possible.
It will not contain the kernel, as it is running on the host machine and is controlled by the host's kernel.
The "official" OpenJDK images from the Docker Hub are available in variants based on a number of different Linux distributions. There is a cut-down Debian, an Alpine, and others. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.
The image will need to contain enough operating system dependencies to allow the JVM to run. It may also include basic diagnostic and management tools -- enough to carry out rudimentary troubleshooting in the container, anyway. You can expect all the images to contain at least basic console shell tools like "cp" and "cat", although they differ in implementation. For example, the Alpine variant gets these utilities from BusyBox, not from a conventional GNU/Linux installation.
It's possible to create a Docker image that contains no platform dependencies at all, but there's little incentive to be that minimal -- you'd just have to build more stuff into the application program itself.
It doesn't include the entire operating system, but the image will be dependent on either linux or windows, you can't build an image that runs on both in one Dockerfile.
The reason for the dependency is that a docker container shares resources with it's host machine in a carefully fenced off way, this mechanism is different on windows and linux (though to you, as a docker user, the difference is invisible).
I have heard that docker doesn't need a separate os in linux, because it shares with the host os, but in hyper-v Windows it can run Windows OS because it can hyper a linux virtual machine so run linux software on it.
But, I get confused about the FROM stage in the dockerfile, all guides said like this:
FROM ubuntu:18.04
cp . /usr/local/bin
RUN make
CMD /usr/local/bin/youapp
I can understand this step, first you need an OS, then you deploy your application; finally you run your app or whatever.
But what does the FROM stage really mean?
Does it always need an OS? Does nginx docker image have an os in it?
If i want to build my own app, I write it, I compile it, I run it; but does my own app need an OS? If not, what should I write in the FROM stage?
i got this picture, it said docker container does not need os,but use the host os,now docker build always need an os
The containers on a host share the (host's) kernel but each container must provide (the subset of) the OS that it needs.
In Windows, there's a 1:1 mapping of kernel:OS but, with Linux, the kernel is bundled into various OSs: Debian, Ubuntu, Alpine, SuSE, CoreOS etc.
The FROM statement often references an operating system but it need not and it is often not necessary (nor a good idea) to bundle an operating system in a container. The container should only include what it needs.
The NGINX image uses Debian (Dockerfile).
In some cases, the container process has no dependencies beyond the kernel. In these cases, a special FROM: scratch may be used that adds nothing else. It's an empty image (link).
No its not like that. To create any docker image using DockerFile, You need to start with a base docker image. That base docker image can be anything, Like an empty image as well, In the docker file in your example the FROM section says ubuntu, it means its assuming ubuntu as the base image. Its not always needed to have an OS as base image.
Follow this link - https://linuxhint.com/create_docker_image_from_scratch/
This will clear your doubts related to base image.
now i got answer
the From stage import the software but not the OS with kernel
it just provide a platform for your application,the ubuntu,debian,centos you write in FROM stage is just a software,the true kernel does not have relationship with them.
so if your application can run dependent ,it must like hello-world ,just a binary-package,dont rely on any other library. but mostly you need an OS,because they have the library you need.
No, the FROM stage is not providing the operating system to the image. The kernel is always provided by the host system where you are running the container. The FROM stage provides the initial file system i.e., files, directories, pre-installed softwares etc for the new image. You can also start FROM scratch which is like a blank slate.
The FROM line need NOT necessarily point to any other OS:
It can be any other container or it could be FROM SCRATCH.
Containers in host share kernel so you can think as it is master process utilizing host kernel.
Generally people see HTTPD, NGINX etc. are utilizing Debian as container OS, since this Debian OS is very thin and serves the purpose of isolation and runs as independent server.
Even you can create a HTTPD, NGINX without using any OS and name with your own version :-)
I have a custom kernel module I need to build for a specific piece of hardware. I want to automate setting up my system so I have been containerizing several applications. One of the things I need is this kernel module. Assuming the kernel headers et al in the Docker container and the kernel on the host are for the exact same version, is it possible to have my whole build process containerized and allow the host to use that module?
Many tasks that involve controlling the host system are best run directly on the host, and I would avoid Docker here.
At a insmod(8) level, Docker containers generally run with a restricted set of permissions and can’t make extremely invasive changes like this over the host. There’s probably a docker run --cap-add option that would theoretically make it possible, but a significant design statement of Docker is that container processes aren’t supposed to be able to impact other containers or the host like this.
At an even broader Linux level, the build version of custom kernel modules has to match the host’s kernel exactly. This means, if you update the host kernel (for a routine security update for example) you have to also rebuild and reinstall any custom modules. Mainstream Linux distributions have support for this, but if you’ve boxed away management of this into a container, you have to remember how to rebuild the container with the newer kernel headers and make sure it doesn’t get restarted until you reboot the host. That can be tricky.
At a Docker level, you’re in effect building an image that can only be used on one very specific system. Usually the concept is to build an image that can be reused in multiple contexts; you want to be able to push the image to a registry and run it on another system with minimal configuration. It’s hard to do this if an image is tied to an extremely specific kernel version or other host-level dependency.
I want to start writing a Docker image. I have a .net Core 2.0 Web Api service that I have deployed to an Amazon Linux machine. It runs fine, but I would like to automate the build and deployment process a bit.
As far as I am concerned, there is no need for a Parent image for the image I need to build. I might grab some files from a location, run some dotnet CLI commands, and run the service using Apache as a reverse proxy. I dont really see the need for a parent image in any of that.
I am asking this question because most of the examples I have seen include a base image. Most of the time its something very generic, like "From Ubuntu". I have read that most images will include a parent image. According to Docker's documentation:
A parent image is the image that your image is based on. It refers to the contents of the FROM directive in the Dockerfile. Each subsequent declaration in the Dockerfile modifies this parent image. Most Dockerfiles start from a parent image, rather than a base image. However, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
What exactly is the point of inheriting from Ubuntu? Even the Docker docs suggest using Debian "since it’s very tightly controlled and kept minimal". Does that just ensure that your Linux machine has an Ubuntu distribution? Does it even matter if I am using Amazon Linux but use the Debian image as my base?
A Docker image runs in a set of filesystem namespaces which are unconnected from the host's except where you've chosen to bind-mount a volume. This means that tools installed on the host are unavailable to the container: Just because the host runs Amazon Linux doesn't mean that the userspace commands Amazon Linux provides (and the libraries those commands use to run) are available to the guests.
Without a Linux distro available inside the container, you wouldn't have a package management tool (yum, apt-get, etc) with which to install the tools you need to download a file, run software (that presumably needs to be linked to a libc, a copy of OpenSSL, or other shared components). There are also runtime parts of a working Linux system such as the resolver that are provided in userland by your distro and not shared from the host in a Docker install.
Using a base image ensures that you have tools available inside your container -- and it ensures that that container will work consistently on any Linux system with a compatible kernel and hardware architecture.
It's possible in theory to bind-mount many of the tools from the host (as by exposing all of /usr as a volume), but doing so would defeat many of the advantages Docker offers in portability.
I want to ask, if I have one folder that contains the application server (Axis2, Tomcat, WSO2, mongodb, and jms-consumer) What can be used as a container?
Is Docker as an application installer? Which classifies the entire application so 1 is then used as installer file, for example: server.exe for windows, server.deb for ubuntu
Could help to explain it?
Docker as an application installer?
No, docker is a a platform which manages containers (isolated user/process/disk machines running with the host kernel), around building, shipping and running (Containers as a Service).
The best practice is to isolate each part of your global service in its own container, both because of the PID1 zombie reaping issue (detailed in "Use of Supervisor in docker"), but also in term of ease of management and update.
If each component only represents a Tomcat, a MongoDB, a..., each one is easier to manage/debug, instead of having one giant container.
Also you can stop/update one without necessarily ipacting all the other ones.
The installation-like part is rather the description of your environment (both in term of OS and of applications you want to add to a container) with the Dockerfile: a description of what your environment will need to run.
That helps building an image (sort of archive of all the files you need), from which you docker run a container.
Right now, those containers only runs as Linux machines on Linux kernel hosts (or on Windows, through a Linux VM).
You don't have yet pure Windows images/containers that runs on Windows (it is in progress, with Windows Server 2016).
So can you just take what you have in one giant folder and put it in a docker container?
Not directly. The goal of Dockerfile is to describe how you would install what you need.
Then you docker build, and from the image you get, you docker run.
But in order for docker to manage correctly the lifecycle of that container, it is best if the container is limited to one process (instead of trynig to run everything like a webapp server, a mongodb, and so on in the same container space)
That means:
describing in separate Dockerfile (building separate images) for each of the components of your system
running those containers in a way they see each others and communicate with each others.
You have an example of a complex multi-component system in my project: b2d.