Flockport.com was recently released which enables you to offer users popular web applications in portable containers that can be deployed in seconds. It is the first Linux based container sharing service that provides users with cloud like flexibility of application instances that can be deployed on demand.
As a site administrator, you will be able to download and share Linux container technology (LXC) containers. It also provides a utility which helps users to setup LXC for Debian. The tool also enables users to view and download Flockport containers directly to their systems.
“We are extremely excited about the launch of Flockport.com. Linux containers are a flexible and highly efficient platform for distributing and deploying web applications. Flockport wants to make containers accessible to a much wider audience and articulate and provide a broader use of containers as lightweight, portable and extremely fast alternative to virtualization”, said Indrajit Banerjee, Founder, Flockport.
As of now, Flockport.com is a free service. The company is slated to release an update which enables developers to deploy Flockport containers directly to the cloud.
Flockport.com is a startup company based in Mumbai, India. You can download detailed documentation from the official website.
In an exclusive interview with Learnxpress, Indrajit shared more information about the use and benefits of Flockport.
Can you elaborate the real purpose behind the launch of Flockport?
Flockport makes it easy for users to deploy apps. Flockport provides over 40 easy to deploy Linux containers of popular web applications including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Prestashop, Moodle, Discourse, Redmine, NodeBB that can deployed in any Linux environment in seconds.
Flockport is also the first Linux-container sharing site that will allow users to discover and share containers.
In Linux hosting, we have tools like Softaculous. Then what is the need for Flockport?
I am presuming Softaculous is a set of scripts to install apps. Installing across environments introduces unpredictability. Different systems will have different environments and configurations.
Linux containers ‘freeze state’ and provide the exact same environment for app execution, making containers the perfect way to distribute and deploy apps. Flockport containers capture state and will run identically wherever deployed. So its a good way to share predictable environments. And containers make it easier and faster for end users to deploy an app that is fully configured and ready to go
More important your get the flexibility of containers like cloning so backups and moving your apps across servers become a simple cloning operation that takes seconds. Linux containers are like virtual machines, but without the performance penalty. Containers are lightweight, efficient and portable.
Is it possible to use Flockport in shared hosting environment?
Flockport containers are based on Linux container technology (LXC), and will work in any environment that supports LXC. Hosting providers typically have a number of restrictions on users. Flockport containers are better suited to virtualized cloud and VPS instances by providers like Digital Ocean, Linode, Amazon etc.
How can end users access Flockport?
They can simply visit the Flockport.com and download Flockport containers and get cloud like flexibility of instances that can be cloned, backed up, and deployed in seconds.
How secure is Flockport?
LXC containers are as robust and secure as any linux distribution. And since a container lives in its own isolated system provides an additional layer of security as any attack has to break through the container first to even get to the host system.
LXC supports apparmour, selinux and seccomp. It also supports user namespaces, a relatively new Linux kernel feature which enables unprivileged containers. This however depends on a number of upstream packages that are not yet widely supported in most distributions.
You can learn more about LXC security in LXC developer Stephane Graber’s excellent 10 part LXC 1.0 blog post series.
Do you store user data like username and passwords on your server?
Like most web sites users need to sign up for an account on Flockport to download containers and participate in the community section. Flockport user accounts are stored on our servers.
Does Flockport support Windows server?
No Flockport is based on Linux container technology that depends on the Linux kernel. Containers work in Linux VMs so users can use VMs in other operating systems.
Do you have any plan to tie up with hosting providers?
We will soon let users deploy Flockport containers to a number of public clouds.
Can you share with us the future roadmap of Flockport?
Flockport wants to make Linux containers accessible to a much wider audience and articulate and provide a broader use of containers as lightweight, portable and extremely fast alternative to virtualization.
