linux-only jail possible?

[John Nielsen]

On Tuesday 02 March 2010 14:52:24 Andrew Hotlab wrote:
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> > From: lists at jnielsen.net
> > To: freebsd-emulation at freebsd.org
> > Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 13:25:27 -0500
> > CC: freebsd-jail at freebsd.org
> > Subject: linux-only jail possible?
> >
> > Has anyone tried to run a jail containing only Linux binaries? I need a
> > lightweight VM-ish solution to run an arbitrary number of test/dev/demo
> > servers (apache + python mostly) but would like it to be reasonably
> > close to the "real" servers (running Linux) in terms of software
> > installation and maintenance, etc. (Moving the whole show over to
> > FreeBSD is a battle for another day..)
> >
> > If you have attempted something like this I'd love to hear from you.
> 
> I didn't attempt that but, if I can make a suggestion, I would never
>  spend time in making a Linux userland run on a BSD kernel while I can
>  run Linux binaries directly on FreeBSD using the Linux ABI
>  (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/linuxemu.html). I heard about a project
>  that aims to do what you are looking for
>  (http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu), but I do not know at what
>  stage it is.

My plan IS to run Linux binaries directly on FreeBSD using the Linux ABI. I 
just want to do it in jails. Since all the software I plan to run in the 
jails will be Linux, I'm wondering if I can get away without using anything 
else.

The debian port is something else. Even if it has jails support it's not 
mature enough for what I have in mind and I'd like the FreeBSD host to be 
real FreeBSD.

> My genuine suggestion is to spend time to advocate BSD and persuade your
>  company to "move the whole show on it"!  ... please note that this
>  suggestion is coming from a multi-certified Microsoft specialist! ;)

My boss is actually a proponent of FreeBSD as well, but there are many man-
hours invested in getting the current infrastructure to work smoothly (which 
it does), and we don't have the time or the motivation to do a wholesale 
switchover at this point. A gradual switch is more likely, especially once 
some things like SUJ have time to mature in the tree.

R,

JN