Daniel Nashed's Blog

Alpine Linux -- An interesting platform to look into

Alpine Linux (https://alpinelinux.org/) is widely spread in the container world. Many container images are available based on Alpine Linux.

Domino will not run on Alpine Linux, because it doesn't have glibc support. It's using it's own Linux lib implementation (musl libc).

It is still an interesting platform to build smaller containers and even running it native on a VM.
I have looked into it this week to see where it can make sense and got some projects Alpine Linux ready.

Beside using it as a container image, it is also a great VM. I created one on my new Proxmox server and got it setup as a Docker host.

On that machine I can build and run the Domino container image -- which is based on RedHat UBI Minimal or CentOS Stream for example.

Looking into it for a day, I am already a fan -- not just for a container.
The setup and package management is simplified and also a lot faster.
OpenSSL, NGINX are available. Which makes it an interesting platform for building very small container images with fewer dependencies.

Is anyone using Alpine Linux for containers or native Linux VMs?
I would be really interested to hear what you are working on with Alpine.

-- Daniel


Note for Domino:
The host Linux machine provides the kernel for the Docker host. The image itself provides glibc.
In case of the current Alpine Linux the kernel 6.6 is too new for Domino. So that makes it currently unsupported.
But it is still great for a test environment!


Here is a Domino Container Image automation test result header showing the combination of the versions

 "testResults": {
    "harness": "DominoCommunityImage",
    "suite": "Regression",
    "testClient": "testing.notes.lab",
    "testServer": "testing.notes.lab",
    "platform": "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 (Plow)",
    "platformVersion": "9.3 (Plow) 9.3 9.3",
    "hostVersion": "",
    "hostPlatform": "Alpine Linux v3.19",
    "testBuild": "14.0",
    "containerPlatform": "docker",
    "containerPlatformVersion": "25.0.3",
    "kernelVersion": "6.6.17-0-lts",
    "kernelBuildTime": "#1-Alpine SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed, 21 Feb 2024 07:47:07 +0000",
    "glibcVersion": "2.34",
    "timezone": "UTC",
    "javaVersion": "17.0.8.1 2023-08-24",
    "dominoAddons": "ontime=11.1.1,languagepackÞ,verse=3.2.0,nomad=1.0.10IF1-14.0,traveler=14.0,domrestapi=1.0.9-14,capi=14.0,leap=1.1.3"
...

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