Re: RE : Re: [tlug] Small footprint Linux distribution without a GUI

[Al Hoang <hoanga@example.com>]

On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 09:11:17AM +0900, Jedidiah Israel wrote:
> On 5/9/07, leon calvaud <enae95@example.com> wrote:
> 
> It does. Thank you.
> 
> My lofty idea is to create a Linux project that uses KVM to host
> individual service instances. For example, having a mail instance, a
> http server instance, and so forth. I hope to use FUSE to bound the
> file systems where appropriate. The idea needs alot of  work. It is
> similar to jailed environment, but I want something more than a simple
> jail.
> 
> The initial goals are to 1) replace VMware, 2) steer clear of SELinux
> and 3) stay small and conceptually simple.

    Depending on your needs, you might want to also explore OpenVZ [1] if you
don't need a whole instance that is virtualized.  It is conceptually similar to what
FreeBSD calls Jails or Solaris calls zones/containers.

    Also I'm a little confused if your host environment is going to be on this
highly constrained environment or are the virtualized instances going to be going
on a diet.  If it is the former, I'm curious to see if this will work well in practice
since the following things sort of spring to mind:

1. Each virtualized instance needs basically a whole install to run 
   properly which dictates they also need space.   So let's say you 
   want to run 10 service instances and you have pared down your 
   custom Linux install to about 20MB.  Each virtualized instance 
   will require approximately the same amount plus factor in the compiled
   binaries for the service in question.
2. How will you handle updating the services in each virtualized instance 
   to deal with security instances
3. Is KVM or whatever you choose robust enough to do what you envision
   or will it require upgrades.  If so then how does this get upgraded?

    Anyways good luck, I'd be curious to see the results although am confused
with the vision still.


Alain

[1] http://openvz.org/