Immutable Software Deploys Using ZFS Jails on FreeBSD
15 days ago
- #FreeBSD
- #Immutable Infrastructure
- #ZFS
- FreeBSD's ZFS snapshots and jails enable immutable deployments with instant rollbacks and zero-downtime upgrades.
- Architecture involves Caddy as a reverse proxy routing traffic to healthy jails cloned from ZFS snapshots.
- Setup includes configuring loopback interfaces, enabling jails, and creating ZFS datasets for templates and containers.
- Base image templates are built from FreeBSD releases, updated, and snapshotted for jail creation.
- New jails are created by cloning snapshots, assigned unique IPs, and configured with services.
- Caddy is installed and configured to manage traffic, health checks, and TLS (if not behind a tunnel).
- Deployment involves updating Caddy's config to point to new jails and reloading the service.
- Benefits include reproducible environments, zero-downtime upgrades, and instant rollbacks.