CoreOS in Action

Preface

As is probably true for many of you reading this book, I started out in the technology industry as a systems administrator for Linux and UNIX systems and networks. Also, like many, I was never satisfied with the levels of (and confidence in) automation available to me. Some of us worked with things like CFEngine, Puppet, and Chef, to manage more with less and to do more serious engineering and less “systems janitoring” with our technology. Then containers became popular, and CoreOS was launched to bridge the gap between containers and systems administration at scale.

I began using CoreOS in late 2013 when it was just getting started. It was the OS that most systems admins knew had to exist eventually: an integrated way to orchestrate ...