# New jail utility "qjail" published for public usage



## fbsd1 (Jul 20, 2010)

This is an news announcement to inform people who have interest in jails, 
that a new jail utility is available.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qjail/

Has a file suitable for the pkg_add command or the port make files can be 
downloaded and a "make install" run.


Qjail [ q = quick ] is a 4th generation wrapper for the basic chroot jail 
system that includes security and performance enhancements. Plus a new 
level of "user friendliness" enhancements dealing with deploying just a few 
jails or large jail environments consisting of 100's of jails. Qjail requires 
no knowledge of the jail command usage.

It uses "nullfs" for read-only system binaries, sharing one copy of
them with all the jails.

Uses "mdconfig" to create sparse image jails. Sparse image jails
provide a method to limit the total disk space a jail can consume,
while only occupying disk space of the sum size of the files in
the image jail.

Ability to assign ip address with their network device name,
so aliases are auto created on jail start and auto removed on jail stop.

Ability to create "ZONE"s of identical qjail systems, each with
their own group of jails.

Ability to designate a portion of the jail name as a group prefix so
the command being executed will apply to only those jail names
matching that prefix.

Qjail reduces the complexities of large jail deployments to the novice
level. Qjail has a fully documented manpage written for easy comprehension. 
Details are given to felicitate the use of qjail's capabilities to the 
fullest extent possible.


----------



## Ben (Jul 22, 2010)

This is a public fork of ezJail?

Can you point out what you extended compared to ezJail?

Thanks.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Jul 22, 2010)

see the recent mentions in the
freebsd-questions list, which includes working
*** found from freebsd.org *** 
CLI relevant to qjail.  (I just read those
a few hours ago), and an explanation about how
it may be easier than ezjail.  It was
posted that not only is it probably easier but
has thorough documentation if one reads it
carefully enough.
....
(Not using jails yet, sorry to not answer anything).


----------



## Ben (Jul 22, 2010)

Can you provide a link? I can't find anything. Thanks.


----------



## sossego (Jul 22, 2010)

Bit curious. How would this be for someone just introduced to FreeBSD? That is the ease of use.


----------



## Ben (Jul 28, 2010)

Is it a secret?

I am really interested in the improvements.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Jul 28, 2010)

Ben said:
			
		

> Can you provide a link? I can't find anything. Thanks.


freebsd.org =>
mailing lists =>
English mailing lists =>
freebsd-questions =>
freebsd-questions archives =>
July (by threads maybe) =>

....
search the 
page of threads or subjects for
"jail" and read the 3-4 or so threads,
you may find useful information to know
before trying the port, from the
threads that mention qjail.


----------



## Ben (Jul 28, 2010)

Ok, I found it. Thanks.

But all I know now is that it doesn't support ZFS, the documentation seems is incomplete and that quite a lot was copied from ezJail.

I don't see in what way qjail is better than ezjail. All I want is a good reason 

But thanks for pointing me to the discussion.


----------



## fbsd1 (Aug 18, 2010)

Well Ben;
If you downloaded qjail and read it's man page for your self them 
you would have the understanding you want. 
And by the way it's ezjail documentation that is incomplete.
Just compare qjail man page to ezjail man pages for your self
and you will see the light!!!!!.


----------



## Savagedlight (Aug 18, 2010)

Since this seems to be some kind of a announce thread for qjail, I think it would be beneficial to have a direct mention of the adventages qjail offer over alternatives such as ezjail (if any).
I'm interested in finding out why I should use qjail instead of ezjail, but I'm not interested *enough* to go dig mail archives etc. 
It's no loss to me if I don't use it (ignorance is a bliss etc), but I think that the OP is interested in having as many as possible use the mentioned tool?
Just a thought.. and definitely not a flame.


----------



## Slade (Aug 18, 2010)

fbsd1 said:
			
		

> Well Ben;
> If you downloaded qjail and read it's man page for your self them
> you would have the understanding you want.
> And by the way it's ezjail documentation that is incomplete.
> ...



Shouldn't there be plenty of information available before you have to download and install something. Especially for something so new that it isn't even in ports.


----------



## ctaranotte (Aug 18, 2010)

Quite interesting.

I will play around with qjail tomorrow.


----------

