portalplatform

Yes, we initially used containers. We think VMs are a more secure form of isolation, which is arguable. We also want users to have the ability to run apps based on a variety of operating systems and kernels.

Portal apps themselves can use containers of course. For example, a game server app might run each game process in a separate container within its own VM.

The big difference is that with Portal you can run 8 x 128 MB (or 4 x 256 MB) VMs within a single 1 GB memory plan. Running each of your apps in a separate VM on a standard VPS would cost a lot more.

That's fair, but it's not just a test, you can really use it. In fact, our own domain runs on Portal. Our web server and email server are two simple custom Portal apps I created in a few minutes for our own use.

The point of the disclaimer is just to make it clear that we expect there to be some initial hiccups, as with any new service.

You can see our old site and product on archive.org if you have any doubts, everything is different, but it does seem true that our idea of Show HN is not quite what the policy is. We'll make only regular submissions from now on. Thanks for undoing the demotion.

I haven't looked at Sandstorm packages in detail yet. I think it definitely should be possible to make a Sandstorm-runner app for Portal. I've experimented with doing this for Docker. It should also be possible to run a full copy of Sandstorm (or more than one) as a Portal app VM. We'll support any and all standards that emerge.

For now, we're just trying to keep it really simple and the JSON config seems as simple as we can make it. Apps could do a lot more, like include their own OS images or rootfs tarballs if it makes sense.

Thanks. Congratulations to you as well.

Thank you!

(And no, I do not know ocdtrekkie although I am also an OCD trekkie.)

It isn't. We've been working for 6 months since the last submission, it's a completely different version of the web site and service, and we're open to anyone for the first time. We're not launching to the general public yet, we're still just looking for more feedback and help from others on HN.

How is this not 100% in the spirit of Show HN?

We're trying to make it as close to self-managed as a sysadmin running their own machine in a colo. We're not there yet but that's where we're headed. Sandstorm is working on a hosting service as well.

The only way you can truly control a server, as an individual, is by running it out of your home. The problem with servers at home is that most residential internet is terrible for running servers on.

I think we may have gone overboard with the wording there!

Updated to more accurately reflect the situation:

Current users of the service should expect some downtime and must careful to backup their data during the Developer Release period.

We haven't had any unexpected downtime or data loss with current users, we just wanted to make sure to warn people that they're using something so new. Thanks!

We're hoping we can encourage app developers themselves to support Portal as a platform, and if we can, we will include those apps as "Officially Supported" apps.

You're correct that right now it's really only possible for developers to use. That will change quickly as we get officially supported apps. We're working to make at least a few apps that work for non-developers within weeks. Thanks again!

Thanks for the detailed feedback. We used to list apps that we have got working ourselves but we decided it's not a great idea to try to support a bunch of third-party open source apps ourselves. We hope we can encourage the actual developers to let users load their app on Portal, it's pretty simple usually. We definitely need some examples though.

Each app is a separate KVM virtual machine. By default, apps only have access to data they've created, not the data of other apps. Apps can communicate over a private (virtual) "LAN" using private IPs. An app's LAN and Internet access can also be disabled.

Our idea for keeping apps up to date is to replace the entire operating system and app software every time the app VM starts up. For example, restarting an app based on "ubuntu14lts" loads the latest daily release of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with all its security patches.

The only thing that survives an app restart is the /data drive, with the idea that not even a rootkit will be cleared by a simple restart.

We're already working with some developers to make personal cloud server apps and really want to encourage more developers to start. There are thousands of apps that need to be written and it's a lot more fun than working in propriety mobile environments!

And it's not just about writing "Portal apps", we want every app that runs on Portal to also run on competing personal cloud server platforms. That's what true decentralization requires.