I’m going to provide a brief introduction to working with Linux containers via LXC. Linux containers are getting a fair amount of attention these days (perhaps due to Docker, which leverages LXC on the back-end) as a lightweight alternative to full machine virtualization such as that provided by “traditional” hypervisors like KVM, Xen, or ESXi.
Both full machine virtualization and containers have their advantages and disadvantages. Full machine virtualization offers greater isolation at the cost of greater overhead, as each virtual machine runs its own full kernel and operating system instance. Containers, on the other hand, generally offer less isolation but lower overhead through sharing certain portions of the host kernel and operating system instance. In my opinion full machine virtualization and containers are complementary; each offers certain advantages that might be useful in specific situations.
Read more at Scott Lowe’s blog.
