[Discuss] docker Re: Corralling Processes on Linux

[smallm at sdf.org (Mike Small)]

"Rich Braun" <richb at pioneer.ci.net> writes:

> Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org> wrote:
>>> I am playing with lots of different processes
>>> communicating with each other, maybe some coming and going
>>> incrementally. I want the ability occasionally kill them all and
>>> start from a clean slate.
>
> Sure sounds like what you really want is Docker and/or Kubernetes. Cgroups is
> part of the mechanism used by containers (such as the original LXC) to isolate
> process groups but there's a whole open-source infrastructure that provide the
> tools that abstract out a lot of the difficult parts of what you want to do.

At what point does it make sense to go to the cgroup level or even
container level and at what point are traditional Unix abstractions like
process groups and sessions adequate?  If Kent is creating all the
processes himself and they all fall in one process group then kill(2) on
the negative of the process group leader should kill them all. To me
that would be simpler (but not necessarily easier? I have much to learn
about container tech.) than working with these higher level abstractions
and toolkits. If plain old process groups are adequate he also gets the
benefit that his software might run on a BSD as is.

-- 
Mike Small
smallm at sdf.org