Solved ClonOS - FreeBSD based distro for virtual hosting platform

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Ole

Hi,

I would like to introduce a new FreeBSD-based distro: ClonOS ( http://clonos.tekroutine.com/ site is underconstruction ).

Currently, FreeBSD is well proven as a base for routers (pfSense, OPNSense, BSDRP) and NAS (FreeNAS, zfsGuru, Nas4Free). However, FreeBSD-based solutions are almost completely absent in the virtualization area, and ClonOS - one of the attempts to change it.

I have recently worked on CBSD project ( https://www.bsdstore.ru/en/about.html ). Initially it was a set of scripts for jail management. Later experimental support for XEN and bhyve has been added. Today CBSD is a mature project that has achieved its goals (in relation to jails), and now I plan to focus on a new project.

ClonOS is a free open-source FreeBSD-based platform for virtual environments creation and management. In the core: FreeBSD (+ bhyve, xen, vale, jail), CBSD (as a management tool) and Puppet (as a configuration management) with other features like go-micro services (obtaining VMs, resizing disks and so on). I like existing solutions such as OpenStack, OpenNebula, Amazon AWS Cloud; and I believe that FreeBSD is able to give something similar.

I would like to see ClonOS in real-world use. In this regard I am interested in finding more people and companies who used FreeBSD in hosting tasks. In addition, it could be great to work with the developers of existing NAS solutions (zfsGuru, Nas4Free). As far as I know, FreeNAS guys are already collaborating with vm-bhyve and iocage, so I think ClonOS as a virtualization-focused project could be engaging for all parties.

I am interested in any ideas and comments. May the Force be with you ;-)
 
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As far as I know, FreeNAS guys are already collaborating with vm-bhyve and iocage
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FreeNAS doesn't have anything to do with vm-bhyve. They imported sysutils/iohyve into v9, mainly just to provide a quick and easy way for their existing users to create bhyve virtual machines. They had already started writing their own bhyve management system, which is fully tied into the middleware/gui of FreeNAS 10, and obviously they didn't want to put loads of resources into writing code for their old version. The v10 system actually looks pretty good from the demos I've seen, although you'd hope so with commercial backing.

I don't know if they have anything to do with iocage, but I'd be surprised if they don't have their own jail management infrastructure considering it would be a bit messy trying to tie the shell based iocage code into their system. (iocage has also stopped development so it can be rewritten in a different language although I don't know how that is going)

Your distro looks really interesting and I'll give it a go when I get a chance. I think I saw a glimpse of it on twitter the other day. I've considered looking at creating a FreeBSD based 'hypervisor appliance' for quite a while now but it's a lot of work and never got round to it.
 
Bdaman said:
What version it it currently based on? Very interesting
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I have only one system with FreeBSD at the moment (for development purposes): FreeBSD 12.0-HEAD ;-)
Which version make release - i do not know. It seems to me a good idea to make two versions - one based on the latest release and second in monthly builds on the current, for extreme users and for testing new features
 
It's probably better to base it on 11-STABLE. At the moment there isn't much happening on 12-CURRENT but this might change some time soon. Keep in mind that -CURRENT is the developer's playground, it can break at any given time.
 
beiroot said:
Ole, I've posted this thread https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/57979/ and as far as I can see ClonOS is an answear to my question. Am I right?
You can run multiple OS and share/manage them via VNC/web browser console?
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Yes, for me it is interest to make accessing from browser, it is more practical. Concerning ClonOS - still no releases for public usage and i have no release date, I would like to find someone else in the project for WEB development. Seems thats at this point it is interesing only to me one ;-)

But the way, except noVNC, i've seen and test a few other solution (HTML5/AJAX/Java-based), but for me noVNC is the best choice and it easy adopted to bhyve/CBSD
 
I'm also really interested in such system, unfortunately I'm not a web developer so I can't help you with that. I could however help you with other stuff should you need hands to work.

Why I asked the question in the first place was that I thought of (ideally) a host OS with all the available open source systems (and versions) as VMs and accessible through a web browser. They probably would be one-time read only versions (security and hardware reasons), but still. Not for commercial purpose, just for the sake of fun and knowledge and to systematize open source OSs. For people to see how Z system looks and Y system looked 10 versions ago. I know this is stupid and almost impossible to do but hey, maybe we can all learn something. :)
 
Sounds like time machine for VM's. I sure, FreeBSD able to solve this task. But you need a big storage for this and may be, XEN will be better here than bhyve (due to a wider range of operating OSes in graphics mode)
 
Update: I freeze functionality of ClonOS for the first release: jail and bhyve management just work. I've prepared ISO/memstick images for people who are interested in it [1].
For bhyve, you must install it on un-virtulized environments - if you install ClonOS in a virtual environment, only jails will work.

Also, besides comments, translators are welcome. After release, I've plan to create sysutils/cbsd-web port for WEB/UI on ordinary FreeBSD.

Thanks!

sk8harddiefast said:
If I understood right is something similar to Vmware ESX but with FreeBSD kernel?
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I like Proxmox / Opennebula / Vmware ESX projects, so yes, my goals - create something similar but on FreeBSD-based technologies.
For the current time (beta of the first version), ClonOS closer to VirtualBox than Proxmox/OpenNebula/etc..[2]
__
[1] - https://clonos.tekroutine.com/download.html
[2] -
 
Hello,

In connection with the release of FreeBSD 12.0, I updated the ClonOS build and switched it to the BETA1 state.
Changes over the past 2 years:

- FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE
- CBSD updated to 12.0.4
- real-time graph has been added
- theme switcher + dark night theme has been added
- user account management has been added
- bhyve p9fs patch has beed added (shared folders features)

planned:
- add bhyve patch for live migration
- add support for XEN (problem in the lack of hardware equipment for development)
- add iSCSI/NFS/Ceph support (it seems that ClonOS + FreeNAS can be a great tandem)

Feedback/ideas/contributors is welcome. Thanks!
Oleg.
 
I have a few questions: what is the status of bhyve concerning live migration or suspend/resume? Is it possible to have a kind of cluster to migrate jails from machine A to B - what tech is used for the storage to overcome the problem of SPOF?
 
rootbert said:
I have a few questions: what is the status of bhyve concerning live migration or suspend/resume?
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Current bhyve live migration status: need more testers to find out current bhyve live migration status. For these reasons, I try to make these patches more accessible to lazy people ;)
My observations: FreeBSD guests migrate quite successfully, while Linux may crash. Since my last testing a lot of changes have happened, maybe the situation is different now.

rootbert said:
Is it possible to have a kind of cluster to migrate jails from machine A to B - what tech is used for the storage to overcome the problem of SPOF?
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Live migration does not apply to jail. You can run bhyve on FreeBSD with live migration feature and place jail inside. This way you will be able to migrate jail instances when you need to maintenance hoster server without interrupt services in jail.
Someone once was attempting to do a live migration for jail: http://www.7he.at/freebsd/vps/ . But this project discontinued due to lack of interest from FreeBSD community (no users, no investors). Another closest technology is checkpoints from DragonFlyBSD.
Never heard that anyone was interested in port this into FreeBSD.

Concerning to SPOF: any general practice is applicable here, e.g: DFS ( Ceph, NFS with failover, HASTd, glusterfs, ZFS-replication, ... ) + CARP
I am currently interested in implementing DRS (distributed resource planner) for CBSD/ClonOS ( my Roadmap ). For example, latest CBSD release support RACCT metrics collection. This is the last step that was needed to start work on DRS ( because we need LA statistics for VM and hoster ). This work will also be included for fault tolerance/high availability.
 
Ole said:
I would like to see ClonOS in real-world use. In this regard I am interested in finding more people and companies who used FreeBSD in hosting tasks. In addition, it could be great to work with the developers of existing NAS solutions (zfsGuru, Nas4Free). As far as I know, FreeNAS guys are already collaborating with vm-bhyve and iocage, so I think ClonOS as a virtualization-focused project could be engaging for all parties.
Click to expand...
And for virtualization in qemu ?
 
Ole said:
Update: I freeze functionality of ClonOS for the first release: jail and bhyve management just work. I've prepared ISO/memstick images for people who are interested in it [1].
For bhyve, you must install it on un-virtulized environments - if you install ClonOS in a virtual environment, only jails will work.
Click to expand...

There was a brief mention of ClonOS on the YouTube Channel Level1Techs (Nov 24, 2019):

FreeNAS vs. Unraid: GRUDGE MATCH!

I wanted to report that I have been able to install CloneOS 19.09 as Guest OS under VMWare Player 15.5.1 (Guest Type: Hyper-V), Host OS (Windows 10 1909), and within that instance of CloneOS I have been able to successfully run some bhyve VMs (CentOS 7-1908, Leap 15.1 & Debian 10.1.0)!
 
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