Docker LinuxKit : For Building Containers on Any Operating System

Docker has officially presented LinuxKit – a tool to create custom and light Linux subsystems for use on multiple platforms. LinuxKit is a container native toolkit allowing developers to build their own containerized secure, modular and portable operating systems. They call it LinuxKit because Linux is the core component of this toolkit. One of the issues Docker team have found that on a number of platforms users wanted Linux container support, but the platform did not have Linux itself. Mac OS and Windows are two obvious examples, but cloud platforms do not have standard Linux distributions as well. Therefore, it makes sense to include Linux on the Docker platform so that it can be run even if Linux is not present in the operating system.

Docker LinuxKit : For Building Containers on Any Operating System

The roots of Linuxkit are in Alpine. LinuxKit is a security-focused subsystem . What Docker proposes is undoubtedly suited to the container ecosystem and the philosophy behind it is the standard size of the distribution is 35MB, which greatly reduces boot time. The user can freely add or delete services – as they are present as a container. The subsystem is suitable for multiple uses and thanks to its high portability  – it is possible to use on the fly on desktop configurations, mainframes, virtualized systems and so on.

The small footprint ultimately reduces the chance to any attacker to have a wider space to circumvent system defences – the task is greatly facilitated by the classic monolithic operating systems. Here is LinuxKit project on GitHub :

 
Here is the Kernel part :

This program was developed with leading companies such as silicon partner ARM, infrastructure providers like HPE, as well as cloud companies including Microsoft and IBM. It is now an open source project that will be managed by The Linux Foundation.