Experimenting With Ubuntu and Debian Linux Containers

Bastille is an open-source system for automating deployment and management containerized applications on FreeBSD.

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Experimental Linux

The Bastille 0.9.x series adds experimental support for Ubuntu and Debian containers. This Linux support extends to Ubuntu “bionic” and “focal” plus Debian “stretch” and “buster”.

This support is achieved using FreeBSD’s native Linux compatibility layer.

The linux module provides limited Linux ABI (application binary interface) compatibility, making it possible to run many unmodified Linux applications and libraries without the need for virtualization or emulation.

Disclaimer

Please note this support is still considered experimental. Not all binaries are guaranteed to work. Your mileage may vary.

That said, we’re excited to see what you can achieve with this feature!

Bootstrap

Before you can create Ubuntu or Debian containers you will need to bootstrap the release. This follows the same standard format to bootstrap a FreeBSD release.

Ubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver”

Usage:

bastille bootstrap bionic

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille bootstrap bionic
I: Retrieving InRelease
I: Retrieving Packages
I: Validating Packages
I: Resolving dependencies of required packages...
I: Resolving dependencies of base packages...
I: Checking component main on http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu...
...

This will download and extract ~102M worth of packages using debootstrap.

Ubuntu 20.04 “Focal Fossa”

Usage:

bastille bootstrap focal

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille bootstrap focal
I: Retrieving InRelease
I: Retrieving Packages
I: Validating Packages
I: Resolving dependencies of required packages...
I: Resolving dependencies of base packages...
I: Checking component main on http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu...
...

This will download and extract ~109M worth of packages using debootstrap.

Debian 10 “Buster”

Usage:

bastille bootstrap buster

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille bootstrap buster
I: Retrieving InRelease
I: Retrieving Packages
I: Validating Packages
I: Resolving dependencies of required packages...
I: Resolving dependencies of base packages...
I: Checking component main on http://deb.debian.org/debian...
...

This will download and extract ~144M worth of packages using debootstrap.

Debian 9 “Stretch”

Usage:

bastille bootstrap stretch

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille bootstrap stretch
I: Retrieving InRelease
I: Retrieving Release
I: Retrieving Packages
I: Validating Packages
I: Resolving dependencies of required packages...
I: Resolving dependencies of base packages...
I: Checking component main on http://deb.debian.org/debian...
...

This will download and extract ~130M worth of packages using debootstrap.

Create Ubuntu Container

Creating Ubuntu containers uses the standard create syntax with the addition of the -L option, ie; bastille create -L name release ip.

Ubuntu 18.04

Usage:

bastille create -L name bionic ip

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille create -L ubuntu-bionic bionic 10.17.89.18
Valid: (10.17.89.18).
Valid: (bastille0).
[ubuntu-bionic]:
ubuntu-bionic: created

Fetching packages...
...
All packages are up to date.

You will see a number of dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!. This is expected.

This will require ~218M of extracted packages.

Ubuntu 20.04

Usage:

bastille create -L name focal ip

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille create -L ubuntu-focal focal 10.17.89.20
Valid: (10.17.89.20).
Valid: (bastille0).
[ubuntu-focal]:
ubuntu-focal: created

Fetching packages...
...
All packages are up to date.

You will see a number of dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!. This is expected.

This will require 237M of extracted packages.

Create Debian Container

Debian 9

Usage:

bastille create -L name stretch ip

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille create -L debian-stretch stretch 10.17.89.09
Valid: (10.17.89.09).
Valid: (bastille0).
[debian-stretch]:
debian-stretch: created

Fetching packages...
...
All packages are up to date.

You will see a number of dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!. This is expected.

This will require ~229M of extracted packages.

Debian 10

Usage:

bastille create -L name buster ip

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille create -L debian-buster buster 10.17.89.10
Valid: (10.17.89.10).
Valid: (bastille0).
[debian-stretch]:
debian-stretch: created

Fetching packages...
...
All packages are up to date.
...

You will see a number of dpkg: warning: ignoring pre-dependency problem!. This is expected.

This will require ~235M of extracted packages.

Example Login

The bastille console command works as expected with these Linux containers. You will be logged in as root and shown the motd.

Example: Bionic

brick ~ # bastille console ubuntu-bionic
[ubuntu-bionic]:
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.17.0 x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

Example: Focal

brick ~ # bastille console ubuntu-focal
[ubuntu-focal]:
Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.17.0 x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

Example: Stretch

ishmael ~ # bastille console debian-stretch
[debian-stretch]:
Linux debian-stretch 3.17.0 FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3 #0: Tue Jun 29 19:46:20 UTC 2021 x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.

Example: Buster

ishmael ~ # bastille console debian-buster
[debian-buster]:
Linux debian-buster 3.17.0 FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3 #0: Tue Jun 29 19:46:20 UTC 2021 x86_64

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.

Automation

Initial support for automation has also been added by way of the CMD and PKG sub-commands. This means you can automate package installation and execute arbitrary commands on Linux containers.

Usage:

bastille pkg debian-buster install htop

Example:

[debian-buster]:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  lsof strace
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  htop
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 92.8 kB of archives.
After this operation, 230 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 htop amd64 2.2.0-1+b1 [92.8 kB]
Fetched 92.8 kB in 0s (412 kB/s)
E: Can not write log (Is /dev/pts mounted?) - posix_openpt (2: No such file or directory)
Selecting previously unselected package htop.
(Reading database ... 9193 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../htop_2.2.0-1+b1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking htop (2.2.0-1+b1) ...
Setting up htop (2.2.0-1+b1) ...

Support for the CMD sub-command works in the same way. Again, your mileage may vary at this stage.

Usage:

bastille cmd debian-buster cat /etc/debian_version

Example:

ishmael ~ # bastille cmd debian-buster cat /etc/debian_version
[debian-buster]:
10.10
[debian-buster]: 0

Template (default/linux)

With the CMD and PKG sub-commands supported we are now able to use templates to automate Linux containers. This means by default the default/linux template is now applied to automate create steps.