Linux containers with systemd-nspawn and rkt
Container Time
The systemd project has given rise to lots of other interesting tools and technologies. Meet systemd-nspawn, a container tool that serves as a simple Docker alternative.
Systemd-nspawn [1]is a lightweight container tool that can run a command or full operating system in a contained environment on Linux. According to the systemd-nspawn man page, systemd-nspawn is "…similar to chroot(1) but more powerful since it fully virtualizes the filesystem hierarchy as well as the process tree, the various IPC subsystems, and the host and domain names." (See also the "Other Container Tools" box.)
Figure 1: A chroot environment offers a simple, but insecure, form of isolation.
The systemd-nspawn container tool began as a means for systemd developers [2] to test building and running systemd itself without affecting the host operating system. Systemd-nspawn lets you launch an application in an isolated container with a single command, making it quite handy for developers who want to run buggy pre-release code without risking damage to the system.
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