There may be a plurality of operative components inside an OCI standard container, though for now, two are of prime importance. The runccomponent is the executive — the part which makes a container functional unto itself. The second part of the puzzle, containerd acts as the part that “supervises” the lifecycle of containers, and that communicates with the outside world via API calls.
That functionality may replace the need for the continual presence of a full container engine in a production system, clearing the way for Kubernetes, Mesosphere DC/OS, and other container orchestration engines.
The open source program at Dropbox was initially just a mailing list, where some interested engineers wanted to open source projects and develop with open source. Over time, things became more formalized, with a focus on ensuring that the company was consistent about what code it would release versus what code was best kept internal.
They also wanted to ensure that the things they were releasing were things that would actually provide value.
“We set minimum standards for what we would release as open source projects, including a review process, and our program just started to drive a lot of value,” said Luke Faraone, Security Engineer at Dropbox.
This chapter from Building Evolutionary Architectures describes architectures that support incremental change along with some of the engineering practices used to achieve incremental change.
In 2010, Jez Humble and Dave Farley released Continuous Delivery, a collection of practices to enhance the engineering efficiency in software projects. They provided the mechanism for building and releasing software via automation and tools but not the structure of how to design evolvable software. Evolutionary architecture assumes these engineering practices as prerequisites but addresses how to utilize them to help design evolvable software.
Our definition of evolutionary architecture implies incremental change, meaning the architecture should facilitate change in small increments. This chapter describes architectures that support incremental change along with some of the engineering practices used to achieve incremental change, an important building block of evolutionary architecture. We discuss two aspects of incremental change: development, which covers how developers build software, and operational, which covers how teams deploy software.
TL; DR: The focus maybe on AWS EKS, the managed Kubernetes offering. The future is with AWS Fargate and similar services
The rapid commoditization of components is a well understood concept in economic theory. What was complex often becomes simple with abstraction. Substitution between vendors becomes easy, and you see increased transparency in product features across both offerings and pricing. Vendors can continue to innovate on a technology level beneath the abstraction, but the longer-term economics now require you to have a volume business, with its inherent structural advantages, to grow your overall margins.
With the announcement of the Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS), Kubernetes has become a commodity across the public cloud ecosystem. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM all now have a managed Kubernetes offering of some form. More significantly, in terms of world-wide growth, Alibaba have quietlycertified their offering under the CNCF certification program, and we anticipate that their extensive involvement with the CNCF will only serve to grow their Kubernetes install base.
Jack Wallen shows you how to use the open source gpg to sign documents for a cost-effective way to ensure your clients the files you send them are, in fact, from you.
There may be plenty of times and reasons why you might want or need to digitally sign a file. For instance, say you’re sharing sensitive information and you want to ensure the recipient can trust the file that contains the data. One way is to digitally sign that file prior to sending it to the client. Once the client receives the file, they can verify the signature and if they trust the digital signature, extract the file within and use the data.
This is the third article in our series on migrating to Linux. If you missed earlier articles, they provided an introduction to Linux for new users and an overview of Linux files and filesystems. In this article, we’ll discuss graphical environments. One of the advantages of Linux is that you have lots of choices, and you can select a graphical interface and customize it to work just the way you like it.
Some of the popular graphical environments in Linux include: Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE Plasma, Xfce, and MATE, but there are many options.
One thing that is often confusing to new Linux users is that, although specific Linux distributions have a default graphical environment, usually you can change the graphical interface at any time. This is different from what people are used to with Windows and Mac OS. The distribution and the graphical environment are separate things, and in many cases, they aren’t tightly coupled together. Additionally, you can run applications built for one graphical environment inside other graphical environments. For example, an application built for the KDE Plasma graphical interface will typically run just fine in the Gnome desktop graphical environment.
Some Linux graphical environments try to mimic Microsoft Windows or Apple’s MacOS to a degree because that’s what some people are familiar with, but other graphical interfaces are unique.
Below, I’ll cover several options showcasing different graphical environments running on different distributions. If you are unsure about which distribution to go with, I recommend starting with Ubuntu. Get the Long Term Support (LTS) version (which is 16.04.3 at the time of writing). Ubuntu is very stable and easy to use.
Transitioning from Mac
The Elementary OS distribution provides a very Mac-like interface. It’s default graphical environment is called Pantheon, and it makes transitioning from a Mac easy. It has a dock at the bottom of the screen and is designed to be extremely simple to use. In its aim to keep things simple, many of the default apps don’t even have menus. Instead, there are buttons and controls on the title bar of the application (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Elementary OS with Pantheon.
The Ubuntu distribution presents a default graphical interface that is also very Mac like. Ubuntu 17.04 or older uses the graphical environment called Unity, which by default places the dock on the left side of the screen and has a global menu bar area at the top that is shared across all applications. Note that newer versions of Ubuntu are switching to the Gnome environment.
Transitioning from Windows
ChaletOS models its interface after Windows to help make migrating from Windows easier. ChaletOS used the graphical environment called Xfce (Figure 2). It has a home/start menu in the usual lower left corner of the screen with the search bar. There are desktop icons and notifications in the lower right corner. It looks so much like Windows that, at first glance, people may even assume you are running Windows.
Figure 2: ChaletOS with Xfce.
The Zorin OS distribution also tries to mimic Windows. Zorin OS uses the Gnome desktop modified to work like Windows’ graphical interface. The start button is at the bottom left with the notification and indicator panel on the lower right. The start button brings up a Windows-like list of applications and a search bar to search.
Unique Environments
One of the most commonly used graphical environments for Linux is the Gnome desktop (Figure 3). Many distributions use Gnome as the default graphical environment. Gnome by default doesn’t try to be like Windows or MacOS but aims for elegance and ease of use in its own way.
Figure 3: openSUSE with Gnome.
The Cinnamon environment was created mostly out of a negative reaction to the Gnome desktop environment when it changed drastically from version 2 to version 3. Although Cinnamon doesn’t look like the older Gnome desktop version 2, it attempts to provide a simple interface, which functions somewhat similar to that of Windows XP.
The graphical environment called MATE is modeled directly after Gnome version 2, which has a menu bar at the top of the screen for applications and settings, and it presents a panel at the bottom of the screen for running application tabs and other widgets.
The KDE plasma environment is built around a widget interface where widgets can be installed on the desktop or in a panel (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Kubuntu with KDE Plasma.
No graphical environment is better than another. They’re just different to suit different people’s tastes. And again, if the options seem too much, start with Ubuntu.
Differences and Similarities
Different operating systems do some things differently, which can make the transition challenging. For example, menus may appear in different places and settings may use different paths to access options. Here I list a few things that are similar and different in Linux to help ease the adjustment.
Mouse
The mouse often works differently in Linux than it does in Windows and MacOS. In Windows and Mac, you double-click on most things to open them up. In Linux, many Linux graphical interfaces are set so that you single click on the item to open it.
Also in Windows, you usually have to click on a window to make it the focused window. In Linux, many interfaces are set so that the focus window is the one under the mouse, even if it’s not on top. The difference can be subtle, and sometimes the behavior is surprising. For example, in Windows if you have a background application (not the top window) and you move the mouse over it, without clicking, and scroll the mouse wheel, the top application window will scroll. In Linux, the background window (the one with the mouse over it) will scroll instead.
Menus
Application menus are a staple of computer programs and recently there seems to be a movement to move the menus out of the way or to remove them altogether. So when migrating to Linux, you may not find menus where you expect. The application menu might be in a global shared menu bar like on MacOS. The menu might be below a “more options” icon, similar to those in many mobile applications. Or, the menu may be removed altogether in exchange for buttons, as with some of the apps in the Pantheon environment in Elementary OS.
Workspaces
Many Linux graphical environments present multiple workspaces. A workspace fills your entire screen and contains windows of some running applications. Switching to a different workspace will change which applications are visible. The concept is to group the open applications used for one project together on one workspace and those for another project on a different workspace.
Not everyone needs or even likes workspaces, but I mention these because sometimes, as a newcomer, you might accidentally switch workspaces with a key combination, and go, “Hey! where’d my applications go?” If all you see is the desktop wallpaper image where you expected to see your apps, chances are you’ve just switched workspaces, and your programs are still running in a workspace that is now not visible. In many Linux environments, you can switch workspaces by pressing Alt-Ctrl and then an arrow (up, down. left or right). Hopefully, you’ll see your programs still there in another workspace.
Of course, if you happen to like workspaces (many people do), then you have found a useful default feature in Linux.
Settings
Many Linux graphical environments also have some type of settings program or settings panel that let you configure settings on the machine. Note that similarly to Windows and MacOS, things in Linux can be configured in fine detail, and not all of these detailed settings can be found in the settings program. These settings, though, should be enough for most of the things you’ll need to set on a typical desktop system, such as selecting the desktop wallpaper, changing how long before the screen goes blank, and connecting to printers, to name a few.
The settings presented in the application will usually not be grouped the same way or named the same way they are on Windows or MacOS. Even different graphical interfaces in Linux can present settings differently, which may take time to adjust to. Online search, of course, is a great place to search for answers on how to configure things in your graphical environment.
Applications
Finally, applications in Linux might be different. You will likely find some familiar applications but others may be completely new to you. For example, you can find Firefox, Chrome, and Skype on Linux. If you can’t find a specific app, there’s usually an alternative program you can use. If not, you can run many Windows applications in a compatibility layer called WINE.
On many Linux graphical environments, you can bring up the applications menu by pressing the Windows Logo key on the keyboard. In others, you need to click on a start/home button or click on an applications menu. In many of the graphical environments, you can search for an application by category rather than by its specific name. For example, if you want to use an editor program but you don’t know what it’s called, you can bring up the application menu and enter “editor” in the search bar, and it will show you one or more applications that are considered editors.
To get you started, here is a short list of a few applications and potential Linux alternatives.
Note that this list is by no means comprehensive; Linux offers a multitude of options to meet your needs.
Learn more about Linux through the free “Introduction to Linux” course from The Linux Foundation and edX.
When I first discovered open source, the idea of building a business around it seemed counterintuitive. However, as I grew more familiar with the movement, I realized that open source software companies were not an anomaly, rather a result of the freedoms open source offers. As GNU project founder Richard Stallman said of free software, it’s “a matter of liberty, not price.” Open source is, above all, about the unhindered liberty to create. In this sense, the innovation and creativity demonstrated in open source business models is a testimony to the ideals of open source.
Although most open source projects do not start as or evolve into companies, companies can grow with open source at the heart of their business model. If you’d like to build a business around open source, here are four successful models to consider.
Unless, of course, you like killing your machines.
Spider-Man’s credo is, “With great power comes great responsibility.” That’s also a wise attitude for Linux system administrators to adopt.
No! Really! Thanks to DevOps and cloud orchestration, a Linux admin can control not merely a single server, but tens of thousands of server instances. With one stupid move—like not patching Apache Struts—you can wreck a multibillion-dollar enterprise.
Failing to stay on top of security patches is a strategic business problem that goes way above the pay grade of a system administrator. But there are many simple ways to blow up Linux servers, which do lie in the hands of sysadmins. It would be nice to imagine that only newbies make these mistakes—but we know better.
As the cryptocurrency craze is reaching new heights, cybercriminals are looking for new methods to steal digital coins. In the past, we have seen methods like crypto jacking and spearphishing attacks. In a related development, security researchers have found a new malware campaign to mine cryptocurrency.
Named Zealot Campaign, this malware targets Linux and Windows machines on an internal network. The most noticeable property of Zealot is the use of NSA’s EternalBlue and EternalSynergy exploits.
The simplest application to write and operate is one that runs in one thread on a single processor. If that’s so easy, why on earth do we ever build anything else? Usually because we also want operational and developmental performance. A single server is a physical and organisational limitation on what you can achieve with an application.
Machine Performance (AKA Things)
There are three main operational performance issues introduced by running on a single machine.
Scale. You might want more CPU, memory or storage than is available on one server no matter how big, or it might be more efficient (cost/server utilization) to use machines with different properties for different functions. For example: CPUs vs GPUs.
Resilience. Any software or piece of physical hardware will crash (even mainframes die eventually). A single server is a single point of failure.
Location. “Propinquity” means useful proximity. Unless the only user of your application will be sitting at a keyboard plugged into your server, eventually your single-machine application will need to talk to something else.
