OmniOS now includes LX support (from Joyent/SmartOS)

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gea

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gea

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I found a nice example allowing a Plex VM on Linux if someone wants to play with the new LX features
Lights and Shapes

I have not tried this myself but it seems a good example to start with. In future all non-storage related features and add-ons are propably Solaris zones, KVM or especially LX/ Linux containers. I will then include a support menu for LX containers in napp-it.
 
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manxam

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Jul 25, 2015
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Thanks for the heads-up Gea. I'm really looking forward to the Napp-it integration!

As I don't want to ask a dumb question on the omnios discuss list (but don't mind asking here :p), where are LX zones virtual machines/images stored?

The posted JSON file doesn't seem to specify to which pool the resultant LX zone is stored. I'd very much like to test this but my root pool is relatively small and I'd like this data stored on a different pool.

Also, can one then use zfs snaps to backup these zones or are they stored as image files (like ESXi/HyperV/etc)?

I'm going to start searching google for lx omnios|illumos|smartos but figured I'd ask here first as the replies have always been helpful and detailed.

Thanks again,
M
 

cperalt1

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They are zones that emulate the linux sys-call table. These would be zfs snaps to backup these zones. I am not sure about the omni-os implementation but in smartos they are stored in the zones dataset. I have been running LX-zones for almost a year now I believe if not longer and it has been rock solid for running a healthcare translation engine, a zone just for Handbrake transcodes and a zone just for running BOINC (SETI At Home). Great to see it in Omni OS now.


Thanks for the heads-up Gea. I'm really looking forward to the Napp-it integration!

As I don't want to ask a dumb question on the omnios discuss list (but don't mind asking here :p), where are LX zones virtual machines/images stored?

The posted JSON file doesn't seem to specify to which pool the resultant LX zone is stored. I'd very much like to test this but my root pool is relatively small and I'd like this data stored on a different pool.

Also, can one then use zfs snaps to backup these zones or are they stored as image files (like ESXi/HyperV/etc)?

I'm going to start searching google for lx omnios|illumos|smartos but figured I'd ask here first as the replies have always been helpful and detailed.

Thanks again,
M
 

gea

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Thanks for the heads-up Gea. I'm really looking forward to the Napp-it integration!
In my own setups I am using ESXi only so I have no experience with SmartOS and LX zones.
Napp-it integration of LX zones will happen in one of next releases. I hope for some help of persons who are working with LX zones more often than me to include a menu that offers support for LX zones with additional services and free add-ons like Plex on Linux.
 

whitey

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In my own setups I am using ESXi only so I have no experience with SmartOS and LX zones.
Napp-it integration of LX zones will happen in one of next releases. I hope for some help of persons who are working with LX zones more often than me to include a menu that offers support for LX zones with additional services and free add-ons like Plex on Linux.
Gea, I am a ALL vSphere shop as well so I just stood up a nested SmartOS instance and ran the LX container that way...nested virtualization inception awaits! :-D
 

gea

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I need Windows, Linux and Solarish as guests so ESXi is best solution for my use case.
But LX branded zones allows a barebone OmniOS now with Linux guests as a container (from SmartOS or others optionally Docker). There are a lot of use cases where you want a Solaris filer with additionally perfect isolated Linux services .

A basic menu at least with items to list all VM on a ZFS pool with options to (import?,) edit settings and start/startoptions should not be too complicated especially if I restrict location to a given ZFS filesystem similar to SmartOS.

Only restriction is that I do not use or need lx zones so I can create the menu but need help on wanted functionality and testing.
 

manxam

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Gea, it appears that this may be relatively trivial (for you, not me!) after taking a look at the config.
The user (or GUI) would need to add the joyent repo. Perhaps you could parse this list to provide a drop down of all available images and store the downloads in a pre-specified directory

An additional setting for interfaces allowing one to add vNics

Then you would need a series of input boxes requesting items such as:
Code:
zonepath (drop down from existing pools/filesystem would be excellent)
autoboot (boolean)
physical (choose from a vNic)
value (linux kernel version)
Additional items can be hard coded as they do not change.
One can also configure the networking settings from outside the zone using the proper config file. This would be extremely useful as input boxes.

Then Napp-it can perform a zoneadm install using the selected image from the first drop-down.

Once complete napp-it can use zoneadm to list, halt, start, etc zones.

Dan's github repo appears to have most of the information required to setup a zone:
GitHub - danmcd/io-lx-public: LX port into OmniOS (illumos portion)

Really looking forward to any progress that you can make towards this. I'm testing zones right now and would be very interested in testing out napp-it's integration as it evolves.
 

cperalt1

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Just to chime in for a second the Value for Linux Kernel Version doesn't really do anything. It is just a text string to identify to applications running in that zone that the kernel is a particular linux version. Real kernel is illumos.
 

gea

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Gea, it appears that this may be relatively trivial (for you, not me!) after taking a look at the config.
No, not at all. I have never used or needed lx zones or zones at all. The guys at Sun developed all the fancy innovations everyone is using now on all platforms like ZFS, lightweight virtualisation with zones/containers, dtrace, service management and many other things, read All Things Containers From Solaris Zones to Docker . You feel like a fool about all these possibilities in Solarish.

This may now help to use it not the way SmartOS or Solaris want. I want it to work similar to napp-it where I follow the idea of setup by copy and run without dependencies to a repository or any sources.

What I like with ESXi is that you can restore a folder, import a VM by a right-mouse click on the .vmx setting file, edit some settings and the VM is ready to run. This is what I want with LX container on napp-it as well.

Downloading large files and VMs from within napp-it is not possible as cgi applications are restricted in their time to run so setup must always be done at CLI. I think of a wget that downloads a folder=container with a service like Plex as a ready to use VM/service. Napp-it can then list, edit and start the VM. The other way is to restore a folder with a container via copy/replication/clone/copy. An idea is that all containers must be in /pool/lx-zones to allow napp-it to find them without a setting.

Is this possible?
Can someone offer the ready to use folder as a zip file that only must be decompressed and copied
What must be edited (edit a file/manifest)
Commands to start the VM

Anything one must care about (ex updates)
 

whitey

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And here she is in all her glory!

smartos-lx-branded-plex-1.png smartos-lx-branded-plex-2.png smartos-lx-branded-plex-3.png smartos-lx-branded-plex-4.png smartos-lx-branded-plex-5.png

JSON code to make it easier to copy/formatting-wise. I took out the external storage for now but you can get an idea of how to do that by following Gea's orig external blog thread of that other gent that is likely wiser than I. This is a quick and dirty/working config :-D

Code:
{
  "alias": "plex",
  "brand": "lx",
  "kernel_version": "3.13.0",
  "max_physical_memory": 4096,
  "image_uuid": "818cc79e-ceb3-11e4-99ee-7bc8c674e754",
  "resolvers": ["192.168.2.100","8.8.4.4"],
  "nics": [
    {
      "nic_tag": "admin",
      "ip": "192.168.2.193",
      "netmask": "255.255.255.0",
      "gateway": "192.168.2.254",
      "primary": "1"
    }
]
}
 

whitey

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Aww snap, I see you were probably REALLY after getting an end-to-end Plex on OmniOS LX zone config/setup. My bad, hope this example helps others though :-D

I sit here and laugh as I KNOW it take me longer to stand up a ubuntu VM from scratch and install plex on it compared to standing up SmartOS VM (I did all this nested on vSphere, didnt even have to pass vtX bits to SmartOS VM), instantiating a LX zone, installing plex .deb file...literally took me MAYBE 5 mins.
 
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gea

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Yes it seems that you must install a Debian or Ubuntu container and manually install Plex then. Let's wait for ready to use Plex container that you can download.

@whitey
While OmniOS use the LX branded zone innovations from SmartOS it does not offer all of their admin tools. Setup and management must be done with the zonecfg and zoneadm tools. This is not a huge restriction but a different handling. Important enough that you can use their preconfigured containers and optionally others (Docker? etc).

I have not used Smartos yet but even after two days, LX branded zones seems to be a killer app for OmniOS as they offer quite the best Opensource ZFS filer based on a Solaris fork, now with the option to run Linux containers directly on the filer. While this would not mean that I can switch from my ESXi setups due the need of Windows, this offers a huge amount of options.

What I would add to the current concept is deploying containers together with manuals, docs or the config file like it is done on ESXi where you can simply provide a folder with the VM that you can simply import and run. An option is that one deploy LX images as a folder imagefile with the zone config file within and the container with the OS as a subfolder.
 
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whitey

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A lil' off 'containers' topic but here's a teaser of Win2K12 running in a KVM VM on SmartOS.

upload_2016-10-13_14-5-48.png
upload_2016-10-13_14-5-59.png

Lemme know if anyone wants a guide, not too tech, just have to know order of operations.
 
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