Content deleted Content added
m →Features: remove mention of specific exploit and changed "lighter weight" to "more lightweight" |
→Features: Added hyperlink to DMVPN |
||
Line 80:
* [[RAM drive|Running from RAM]]: Alpine Linux can be installed as a run-from-RAM distribution. The LBU (Alpine Local Backup)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_local_backup|title=Alpine local backup|publisher=}}</ref> tool optionally allows all configuration files to be backed up to an APK overlay file (usually shortened to ''apkovl''), a tar.gz file that by default stores a copy of all changed files in /etc (with the option to add more directories). This allows Alpine to work reliably in demanding embedded environments or to (temporarily) survive partial disk failures as sometimes experienced in public cloud environments.
* Security: A hardened kernel is included in the default Alpine Linux kernel, which aids in reducing the impact of exploits and vulnerabilities. All packages are also compiled with stack-smashing protection to help mitigate the effects of userland [[buffer overflow]]s.
* Networking: Alpine Linux is the only distribution that as a default includes patches that allow using efficient meshed VPNs using the [[DMVPN]] standard.
* Virtualization: Alpine Linux has reliably had excellent support of Xen hypervisors in up-to-date versions, which avoids issues as experienced with Enterprise Distributions. (The standard Linux hypervisor KVM, is also available.)
* Size: The base system in Alpine Linux is designed to be only 4–5 [[Megabyte|MB]] in size (excluding the kernel).{{citation needed|date=November 2015}} This allows very small [[Linux containers]], around 8 MB in size, while a minimal installation to disk might be around 130 MB.<ref name="about" /> The Linux kernel is much larger; the 3.18.16 kernel includes 121 MB of loadable kernel modules (primarily drivers) in addition to the 3.3 MB for the base [[x86-64]] kernel image.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}
| |||