<![CDATA[How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :)]]>I'm working with @thetomester13 on setting up a hosted Cloudron service (see https://selfhost.cloud ) and we'd like to explain a bit about how Cloudron works (and why the way it works is so cool/ great/ good for security etc).

I think it'd be really great/ useful to have such info on the Cloudron website too! (I guess as a start perhaps copy/ paste some of what's in the box README https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron/box/-/blob/master/README.md )

My very limited understanding goes something like this:

Cloudron is largely based on Docker. This is good because it's more secure and if one app goes down/ gets hacked it can't effect all the other apps on the server.

(I'd love to be able to fill this bit out a bit with stuff about why Docker/ containerisation is cool/ good/ secure - I guess maybe from https://www.docker.com/why-docker and https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container etc )

But Cloudron is not just Docker.

Cloudron packages apps into Docker containers, but they also include some other magic/ goodness, including tests. What else?

I think some of the what else are relevant Cloudron addons and other goodness like the STUN/ TURN server, LDAP server, Email server, Firewall, DNS stuff etc.

Which are the main/ most important ones? and what does each one do?

And then all this magic means it's really super easy to selfhost awesome apps on your own domains and to have LDAP powered SSO etc, plus to keep them all updated, backed-up and secure.

Right?

Basically how does Cloudron work? What does the box code do? why is that awesome?

Thanks!

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3849/how-does-cloudron-work-what-does-it-do-etcRSS for NodeMon, 15 Jun 2026 11:07:05 GMTThu, 03 Dec 2020 23:45:44 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 05 May 2025 09:50:16 GMT]]>@girish said in How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc 🙂:

@jdaviescoates Thanks, file.pizza delivered! I have re-uploaded to https://videos.cloudron.io/videos/watch/206fc4b7-9641-4453-8be0-67450f2574b1

FYI the link to the slides given there is broken.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/106645https://forum.cloudron.io/post/106645Mon, 05 May 2025 09:50:16 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 19:25:42 GMT]]>@girish said in How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc 🙂:

@robi Would be interesting to know what systemd-detect-virt prints for nestybox

That's easy to test, just change one line in the docker config or specify it on the CLI and bring up a container using sysbox, then run the tool.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46621https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46621Mon, 25 Apr 2022 19:25:42 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:49:45 GMT]]>I just found that https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-detect-virt.html has quite a nice list of container and vm technologies.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46617https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46617Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:49:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:48:35 GMT]]>@robi Would be interesting to know what systemd-detect-virt prints for nestybox

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46616https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46616Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:48:35 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:32:59 GMT]]>@girish you should take a look at it again. 😉

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46614https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46614Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:32:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:00:47 GMT]]>@robi From what I remember, sysbox was like a backend to docker, it doesn't replace docker. Unlike the other things I mentioned which will replace docker.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46608https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46608Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:00:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:32:33 GMT]]>@girish said in How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc 🙂:

Changing the run time will break custom apps, so I think we are married to Docker until that project lives.

That's not quite true.. remember Nestybox?
Their runtime called "sysbox" is a drop in replacement for runc which docker uses by default.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46607https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46607Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:32:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 16:39:55 GMT]]>Forgot to mention sandstom.io, which implements containers by itself and does not use docker.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46604https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46604Mon, 25 Apr 2022 16:39:55 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 16:39:21 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates The linux kernel has various built-in features/system calls like 'cgroups' (provides cpu/ram/resource isolation), namespaces (pid/ipc/mounts), overlay filesystem etc. These things apply to 'process'es.

'Container' is a term and not some feature of the kernel as such. It brings all the above system calls together along with bundling/packaging aspect to help create containerized "apps". Apps can be desktop UI, web apps, daemons, anything.

Docker is one implementation of the 'container' concept. When creating a implementation (just like how you design a language), you have to decide style/structure/format. We have this Dockerfile that explains how to put deps together, how to configure things, how to push the final build image to the cloud and pull down this image and deploy it on another server etc.

Other implementations exist which are in various states - rocket, OpenVZ(?), LXC, snap, containerd, cri-o off my head.

When we started, Docker was the de-facto implementation. These days there are more options and in theory we can switch to another one without affecting end users (though it's a lot of work). Also, when we started, we had no 'custom apps'. Changing the run time will break custom apps, so I think we are married to Docker until that project lives.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46603https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46603Mon, 25 Apr 2022 16:39:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:51:12 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates all apps and services use docker for containerization currently. When we started, we had ideas of allow this to maybe change that, as Cloudron acts as an abstraction on top of such lower-level features. In the end so far there was no real reason for supporting other containerization methods. Also it would cause mostly unnecessary extra work for little benefit, still we try to not expose containerization specifics to apps to stay portable as much as possible for the future.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46599https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46599Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:51:12 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:43:18 GMT]]>@girish I have a small question about this video I've been meaning to ask for ages... somewhere you mention that Cloudron uses "Linux containers" - does that basically just mean Docker? or does Cloudron also use some other form of Linux containerization too? thanks!

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46598https://forum.cloudron.io/post/46598Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:43:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 22:12:12 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates Thanks, file.pizza delivered! I have re-uploaded to https://videos.cloudron.io/videos/watch/206fc4b7-9641-4453-8be0-67450f2574b1

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21666https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21666Mon, 14 Dec 2020 22:12:12 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:54:11 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates thanks, I managed to download the unrotated version. I will try to rotate and upload it now.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21662https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21662Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:54:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:35:11 GMT]]>@girish @robi there is clearly something very wrong with the timestamps in the original hence why we've got all these different timing!

Anyways, here is the 295.2MB original I managed to get off Periscope (which says it's 1:16:26 when I open it with VLC):

(well, this is taking forever to process for some reason, so will come back and add the link if it ever finishes)

FilePizza still says processing so here it is via Surfer:
https://files.uniteddiversity.coop/BayLISA_Cloudron.mp4 (although again, something strange about this video as Surfer wont play it when it normally does play videos - plays fine for me in VLC though)

And here is a 147.4MB rotated version (using @nebulon's command) which is bizarrely 1:19:24

https://transfer.uniteddiversity.coop/beef/spinach/oregano/broccoli

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21658https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21658Mon, 14 Dec 2020 21:35:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:33:39 GMT]]>@girish yes will do once back on my laptop where the file is...

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21641https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21641Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:33:39 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:24:08 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates I'd suggest a file.pizza link so we can help seed/speed it around.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21634https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21634Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:24:08 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:22:26 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates Do you think you can upload the have somewhere, so we can download it? I tried periscope again and only got a 30min video.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21633https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21633Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:22:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:18:45 GMT]]>@girish that's even shorter than the one @nebulon uploaded! The full thing is about 1hr 15 minute

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21631https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21631Mon, 14 Dec 2020 20:18:45 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 17:54:52 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates how long is the video length. The one I downloaded (a week ago) directly is 31:26

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21611https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21611Mon, 14 Dec 2020 17:54:52 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 13:09:24 GMT]]>@nebulon I've got the complete original from periscope if that helps?

When I tried Alltube, it didn't work, but that periscope download link I shared above worked for me.

This one https://pscp.download/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pscp.tv%2Fw%2F1YqKDBZVqjvJV

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21592https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21592Mon, 14 Dec 2020 13:09:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Mon, 14 Dec 2020 12:23:22 GMT]]>@robi indeed, have to see why that happened 😕 So the root cause is that either the video on persicope is cut off or the download from periscope just stops at some point. Not sure, however I wasn't able to fully download it thus far.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21590https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21590Mon, 14 Dec 2020 12:23:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Sun, 13 Dec 2020 01:35:39 GMT]]>@jdaviescoates Nice catch! You're right, seems to be cut off at the end.

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21518https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21518Sun, 13 Dec 2020 01:35:39 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Sun, 13 Dec 2020 00:18:03 GMT]]>@nebulon said in How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc 🙂:

@jdaviescoates I rotated the video now and uploaded it to https://videos.cloudron.io/videos/watch/79a34d05-a60b-4ec3-9327-fd736016494c 🙂

Just realised you're missing about half an hour on that video!

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21516https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21516Sun, 13 Dec 2020 00:18:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How does Cloudron work? What does it do? etc :) on Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:02:50 GMT]]>@mehdi doh, thanks!

]]>https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21469https://forum.cloudron.io/post/21469Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:02:50 GMT