Do-It-Yourself Jails

One of FreeBSD’s unique features is the close alignment of containers, filesystems, and networking, within the base Operating System. There are many jail manager tools, but they all use the same functionality under the hood.

Join the Elite. Attain Jail Enlightenment.

Along the way, you’ll learn how jails are actually built in practice, from scratch, and deepen your understanding of the relevant bits of FreeBSD that allow you to do so.

This tutorial is suitable for beginners & intermediates, and will go at an appropriate pace depending on attendees.

What You’ll Learn

• learn the underlying truth about all jail tools
• wield & jail ZFS datasets like a ninja
• how to share data between hosts and jails
• route packets with abandon
• learn about vxlan(4) to make multiple jail hosts appear as one
• acquaint yourself with jail security
• summon customised jails like an arcane sorcerer

Pre-requisites

• basic knowledge of FreeBSD & sh(1)
• a vague understanding of ZFS
• a UNIX laptop capable of SSH and ideally a wired ethernet connection
• the desire to ascend to a higher realm of reality

What You’ll Accomplish

Why yes, you too can write your own Jail Management tool from scratch. Alternatively, you’ll know how existing jail management tools actually work, and be able to get the most out of them.