User instead of system centric…

[rcfa]

I downloaded the project to play with it, and maybe I'm doing something wrong or am missing something, but it feels like something that should run on iPadOS instead of macOS.

I say this, because it seems to treat everything as like we were working on a single user system:

e.g.

• auto stat upon login, instead of auto start upon system boot, like who logs into their server console?
• ~/Orbstack instead of /Users/Shared/Orbstack or /Volumes/Orbstack
• ~/.orbstack/data instead of /var/orbstack/data or /Users/Shared/Orbstack/data
• homebrew (and its file ownership issues) instead of e.g. Mac ports
• setting the user of Linux machines
• etc. etc.

All that's somewhat acceptable for experimenting, but say I just buy a macMini to run my personal Nextcloud and e-mail server on it: I'd never log in, might have the system reboot on a schedule, etc. and all services were offline, until I log in...

Or say I use it to set up a workgroup server. Then there should be ONE setup shared by all users, of which some are privileged for admin, others aren't.

No matter who logs in, they should end up on the SAME Linux machines, with a DIFFERENT account. It shouldn't be that each user has their own environment.

Are there any ways to make this a system centered setup, where the front end app connects to the back end and must authenticate, and based on the user who authenticates, the privileges are different?

[os-emmie]

hi! currently, OrbStack is designed to be able to work without administrative privileges. the features you mention would require limiting OrbStack to users who have administrative privileges. furthermore, machines are meant to be personal to users, as you would expect from having a normal type 2 hypervisor. the behavior you're expecting is more akin to a type 1 hypervisor, which isn't quite what we're aiming for. in other words, OrbStack is still meant to function as an application rather than transforming macos into a full type 1 hypervisor.

[rcfa]

Pity. Because that reduces it to a toy, or testing/development platform.

Also, the way I envision it, it would be a system install (THAT would require adminstrative privileges, which every owner of a Mac has anyway). Once installed, access could be given to other users. Users on the mac system level could/would be mirrored in the virtual machines.

The current crop of Apple Silicon hardware would have the potential to do serious server duty, especially for family, small to midsized businesses, but that’s nothing that is personal.
In general, I have trouble understanding how, outside of an academic setting, anyone would want to run servers and network services, as a personal app.
I run Word as a personal app, but not a web server, database engine, DNS or mail server, or whatever else I could imagine deploying as Docker/Kubernetes service.
Looks to me like a fundamental mismatch between what Docker/Kubernetes is designed for, and what type of user the app seems to target.
I mean, if this were a free app targeting educational institutions, where students can test such things in a sandbox without intention to ever deploy, yes, that would make sense. But in the context of Pro and Enterprise licenses, it’s not clear how anyone would tolerate enterprise services to be deployed from an employee’s personal account.

I found the product by looking for tools that allow me to use a high-end mac (e.g. MacMini M4 Pro, or MacStudio M4 Ultra) as a server for a variety of tasks (Nextcloud, DNS, Stalwart e-mail, Web, etc.) while isolating it from the whims of Apple’s software update policies that e.g. killed MacOS X Server. But if this needs to run in a personal account, it’s obviously not suitable. Pity.

I’d be more than happy to help testing, if you ever decide to take the product or a version thereof, to the system level.

[os-emmie]

you are right that OrbStack's primary use case is development -- docker and kubernetes are both excellent tools for deployment, and deployment on containers requires development on containers. deploying enterprise services on top of OrbStack is currently not ideal.

i would personally say that macos is not ideal for use as a server right now. though the high end mac offerings do have enough power for homelab server use cases, they are not well positioned for enterprise use, lacking ipmi, swappable drives, rack-mountability, and other essential features, especially when things like the arm neoverse line already exist.

that being said, allowing OrbStack to better be used as a server would very much be nice. i personally am thinking about moving my homelab to it.