Microsoft CBL-Mariner (Common Base Linux Mariner)

2021: Microsoft released its first Linux-distribution

In mid-July 2021 Microsoft , she released the first stable version of her - Linux CBL-Mariner 1.0 (Common Base Linux Mariner), which is used by the company for internal needs, including for cloud infrastructure Azure and. peripheral computing

The distribution provides a small, generic set of core packages that provide a universal foundation for creating a filling of containers, host environments, and services that run on cloud infrastructures and peripherals. More complex and specialized solutions can be created by adding additional packages on top of CBL-Mariner, but the basis for all such systems remains unchanged, which simplifies the maintenance and preparation of updates. In total, there are 3,000 available packages on the Microsoft site.

Microsoft introduced its first Linux-distribution

Although this distribution was created for developers inside Microsoft and the publication of the ISO image is not provided, however, the repository has instructions for assembling images under Ubuntu 18.04. You must first install Docker, the latest Go, RPM tools, and other dependencies.

In CBL-Mariner 1.0, buffer and stack overflow protection is active by default, and memory areas that store parts of the core and modules are read-only. Execution of any code in them is prohibited.

The CBL-Mariner build system allows you to generate both individual RPM packages based on SPEC files and source texts, as well as monolithic system images generated using the rpm-island toolbox and updated atomically without splitting into separate packages.

To simplify installation, CBL-Mariner has an installer with graphical mode. According to Juan Manuel Rey of the Microsoft Azure team, the distribution is installed and works quite quickly. In addition, separate attention is paid to security, he added.^[1]

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