Microsoft announces native Linux containers for Windows

At DockerCon 2017, Docker team today announced LinuxKit, a secure, lean and portable Linux subsystem for the container movement. LinuxKit includes the tooling to allow building custom Linux subsystems that only include exactly the components the runtime platform requires. All system services are containers that can be replaced, and everything that is not required can be removed. Because LinuxKit is container-native, it has a very minimal size – 35MB with a very minimal boot time. Since LinuxKit is portable, it can run on all platforms where Docker currently runs.

Microsoft today joined Docker on stage to announce that they will make Linux containers run natively on Windows Server through our Hyper-V isolation technology. This will allow developers to build with Windows and IT administrators hosting Windows Server to run any container image regardless of their platform. Docker will be working with Microsoft on how to integrate LinuxKit subsystem with Hyper-V isolation. To offer more Linux distributions choice to the customers, Microsoft is open sourcing the required integration code and they have been working with leading Linux vendors including RedHat, Intel, Canonical and SUSE who will be providing container OS images.