Ready to use Nodebb instance based on LXC containers
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Hi Nodebb users,
I am happy to finally make this post. Some of the regulars may have seen me on other threads discussing forum design.
We recently launched Flockport which provides ready to use instances of popular apps based on LXC containers. And we have a Nodebb instance ready for download and use. See the Nodebb container in action here
Containers are like lightweight virtual machines, that let your run multiple Linux OS containers within your host OS. So you could be running a Debian host with for instance multiple Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu containers and vice versa. And the biggie is these containers are portable across any Linux system. So you can move your Nodebb installation across servers with minimum fuss, just zip it and move!
Even better containers operate at near bare-metal speeds, there is no virtualization overhead. This is fantastic technology for end users and the only reason its not seen more widespread adoption and use is due to lack of marketing by the Ubuntu supported LXC project.
Linux containers (LXC) is supported natively in the Linux kernel. Most distributions have LXC packages available and its mostly an apt-get install away.
To use the Flockport Nodebb container you need to install LXC and download the Nodebb container -150MB. This frees you from installing and configuring web stacks and apps, just download a container and you are read to go.
We have tons of guides and videos to help users along. There are currently over 40 apps that users can download and launch in seconds from real toughies like Discourse, Redmine, Gitlab to the easier ones like like Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla.
As many of you will notice when you visit the website we are using Nodebb for our community section - a big thank you to the Nodebb team for giving users a fast, lightweight and modern forum! We have opted for a clean minimalist look. I would love your feedback, thoughts and inputs.
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Very nice. Congrats! Also great to see that you guys decided to use NodeBB for your forums
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The logo you've used on the homepage of flockport to show it includes NodeBB doesn't appear to be the right logo. Should be one of these.
Good work though, seems like it could be useful.
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@psychobunny - thanks! I personally think containers are just too useful across a range of use cases and its only a matter of time it becomes mainstream. And our job is to make it as easy for users as possible.
Nodebb is lightweight and superfast - the only biggie pending is SSO, and I sort of have it on my list of to do list for a couple of month and should get to it.
@a_5mith - thanks for sharing that, I am going to get that updated.
@a_5mith - just updated the nodebb logo on the Flockport containers page. Let me know if it looks ok, thanks!
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Awesome work @raul, glad to see NodeBB available for general consumption
The official way will still be git clone on Ubuntu 14.04, but it's nice to know there are third-party one-click install solutions. It was a matter of time.
We semi-officially support Docker as well. @xaoseric is our release manager for that method. Does Flockport have something similar where builds can be made against a github repo?
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@a_5mith - thanks! yes the front page logo is in the works and should be updated shortly.
@julian - thanks! yes the official way should always be a native install, using LXC or Docker makes it simpler and faster to launch, and provides added flexibility in deployment, but there should be some understanding of how the components work together which a native install, which can be also be done in an LXC container like we do, gives users. We are definitely going to look at how we can integrate github into our current build process.
LXC has been baking since 2009, was merged into the kernel around 2.6.32 and has been mainly developed by a team led by Daniel Lezcano, Serge Halyn and Stephane Graber. Its an Ubuntu supported project since 2012. Serge and Stephane work for Ubuntu. LXC provides container management tools and container OS templates. Here is a video walk through of LXC
Docker was based on the LXC project untill 0.9 when it switched to its own engine libcontainer, though users can still choose LXC as the underlying container engine.
Docker containers and LXC containers are a bit different. Docker uses containers to build an app delivery platform and abstracts the container away to an app, while LXC gives you a full Linux environment like a lightweight VM, with some caveats.
However due to the low profile of the LXC project, a lot of users first introduction to containers may have been Docker, and there are some misconceptions and a lot of users will be surprised by the flexibility and usability of LXC without the constraints of Docker.
