From the website, main features are (with my comments):<p>* a ready repository for kernels and the worlds that takes buildworld/installworld steps not the obligatory.<p>* when steps of buildworld/installworld are undertaken,
src.conf for a world customization is supported<p>* base the catalog can place on MD/RAM/TMPFS on a disk that can be useful at a big num of jails with RO mounted base<p>* support of ZFS of file system, ZFS of quotas, ZFS snapshots<p>* GUI configurator of jails (DIALOG/WEB)<p>* VIMAGE support (separate network stack per jail container)<p>* traffic count per jail, RACCT/RCTL support (resource restrictions)<p>* import/export of jails, jail replication, cold migration of a jails between nodes<p>* descriptions for jails<p>* management of sequence of start of jail and their priority<p>* a repository with ready jail template<p>* possibility to create own scenarios for creation of jails/repository<p>* jail converting into PXE/ISO/Memstick-image<p>* support for jail non-native architecture via Qemu User mode (eg: arm or mips64 jail on x86-64 host system)
This project seems great, but I feel there's something wrong with the submitted article title, it sounds weird (plus, there's no mention of Docker on the linked page). Sure, you can draw parallels between Docker and what FreeBSD jails and tools built on top do, but it would be fairer to say Docker is a Linux based alternative to jails, and not as powerful (as far as I understand Linux kernel infrastructure that Docker uses). The crucial difference is that jails are really a security feature in FreeBSD (and if you're not using them in production you're probably doing it wrong), whereas Docker is primarily deployment oriented (please correct me if I'm wrong about Docker here). Various jail management tools give you a nice, easy to use, set of deployment features on top.
FWIW, the PC-BSD project (think "FreeBSD fine-tuned for the Desktop") has written various tools to help managing such things as FreeBSD jails easier -- see, for example, warden [0]).<p>If you're looking to try it out but don't need/want the desktop/GUI, there's also TrueOS. It's basically FreeBSD plus all the cool management tools they've written but minus the desktop/GUI.<p>[0]: <a href="http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Warden%C2%AE/10.0" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Warden%C2%AE/10.0</a>
The dependency list is amazingly minimal!<p>> rsync,sudo,libssh2,sqlite3<p>Now, I don't use FreeBSD, but that seems like a dream when it comes to provisioning.
See also <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/zjails/" rel="nofollow">http://sourceforge.net/projects/zjails/</a> which is pretty cool because all of the jail config is stored in ZFS attributes, so they are backed up/replicated with snapshots and ZFS send/receive.
Interesting project, but I'm a little disappointed it's not a shiny new thing for the bhyve virtualization layer[1] introduced in freebsd-10, but rather builds on "plain" jails.<p>I'd say something like this on top of bhyve would be a closer match for docker (which sits on top of lxc).<p>[1] <a href="https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/bhyve?action=show&redirect=BHyVe" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/bhyve?action=show&redir...</a>
dallagi: your comments are marked as dead. Judging from your comments there's no real reason for it, so I think a bot did it because you commented on a troll submission.<p>for the rest of HN:<p>Isn't one of Dockers killer features the layered file system? Using rsync for making new jails seems like it's going to be real slow for reprovisioning.<p>What kind of things to people use FreeBSD for? I wonder if they're really rooting for a docker coming to their environment.
When i asked whether there are any equivalent of Docker and CoreOS for FreeBSD, i got downvoted by HN into Oblivion.<p>Good to see there is at least 74 points on the topic.