service-base

A base Docker images for all images using single service per container principle. Contains S6 init system⁠ via S6 overlay⁠.

Different layers are build on top of each other and they include scripts for different needs. The goal is to provide easy base to build web application development containers.

Special paths

• /etc/cont-init.d includes scripts, which are run in order at init time before main command. Different layers add scripts here. More in S6 overly documentation.
• /etc/services.d/ contains service directories for S6 services (copied to /run/s6/services/ by S6 overlay)
• /data shared data volume for application containers
• /local is a link to /data/$CONTAINER_TYPE (created by /etc/cont-init.d/00_local_data)
• /src any files here are copied to /srv/ (by /etc/cont-init.d/10_copy_srcs)

Layers and utilities

• base - just s6 init and utilities

  Utils apt_install, apt_purge and apt configs are included to help build different layers and application container. The apt_install [packages...] udpates the index, installs packages and removes debs and the index. The apt_purge [packages...] does it's best to ensure nothing is left after removing packages.

  The script /usr/local/lib/prefix-logs can be used to prefix logs with a service name before printed to stdout. To use it, link service ./log/run to it.

  Shell functions in /usr/local/lib/cont-init-functions.sh help creating simple cont-init.d scripts. Read the file and check the example below to know more.

  Utils run_services <service> [service...] and start_services <service> [service...] can be used by the main script to run service once or start it with restart policy respectively. Both are just wrappers for s6-svc⁠.

  There are some other scripts, explore and read them when needed.

• dbipc (on top of base) - postgresql and rabbitmq

  create-db.sh <user> <database_name> [<command> [args...]] starts PostgreSQL, creates an user and a db, runs the command to initialise it and finally dumps the contents to /srv/db-$dabase_mame.sql.gz. The purpose is to run this in Dockerfile to prebuild complex database, so initial container start is faster.

  init-db.sh <user> <database_name> [<command> [args...]] checks if user can connect to database database_name. If it can't, it will create the database and the user, and will populate the database with /srv/db-$database_name.sql.gz if it exists, or with the command. If the connection can be made, then the command is run to update it. Environment variable DATABASE_IS_EMPTY is set to true for first case.

  Both commands will set following environment variables and run the command as user: DATABASE_USER=$user, DATABASE_NAME=$database_name, DATABASE_IS_EMPTY=[true|], USER=$user

• python3 (on top of dbipc) - base for Python projects

  pip_install for Dockerfiles. It is just alias for pip3 install --no-cache-dir --disable-pip-version-check.

  /etc/cont-init.d/90_virtualenv creates virtual environments under /local for every /srv/<app>/requirements.txt. For example, if you mount a development code to /srv/myapp, then /local/venv_myapp will be created with requirements from the project.

• django (on top of python3) - utilities for Django based projects

  django-migrate.sh [bootstrap] is tool to be used with create-db.sh and init-db.sh. If there is requirements.txt, it will execute ./manage.py makemigrations and if any are created, it will print them to stdout. All migrations should be created by the developer, but this is here to identify missing migrations. Next, it will run ./manage.py migrate to ensure database is updated. Lastly, if $DATABASE_IS_EMPTY is true and there exists a bootstrap script, it will be execute using python3. The bootstrap script is the first argument for django-migrate.sh or /srv/db-$DATABASE_NAME-bootstrap.py.

  run-django.sh [-u user] [-d database_name] [-a app_path] [-s setup_script] [-i init_script] where user defaults to $CONTAINER_TYPE, database_name to user, app_path to /srv/$user, setup_script to /srv/$app_name-setup.py and init_script to /srv/$app_name-init.sh. The app_name is the directory name of $app_path.

  1. If /local/venv_$app_name/bin/activate exists, it will be sourced. Check /etc/cont-init.d/90_virtualenv from python3 layer.

  2. Execute init-db.sh $user $database_name django-migrate.sh, to ensure database state.

  3. If requirements.txt exists, run ./manage.py compilemessages

  4. Run ./manage.py collectstatic

  5. If $setup_script exists, run it using python3 as $user

  6. If $init_script exists, run it as root.

  7. Finally, as $user:

     • If first argument is manage, execute ./manage.py <rest of the arguments>
     • If any arguments, execute all the arguments
     • Else, execute ./manage.py help

  The script will exit on first failure (set -x).

Application container

For an exmaple, a Django application container could be created with a Dockerfile:

FROM apluslms/service-base:django-latest

ENV CONTAINER_TYPE="myapp" \
    DJANGO_LOCAL_SETTINGS="/srv/myapp-django-settings.py" \
    DJANGO_SECRET_KEY_FILE="/local/django/secret_key.py"

RUN adduser --system --no-create-home --disabled-password --gecos "A webapp server,,," --home /srv/myapp --ingroup nogroup myapp
RUN mkdir /srv/myapp && chown myapp.nogroup /srv/myapp

COPY myapp-cont-init.sh /etc/cont-init.d/myapp
COPY myapp-django-settings.py \
     myapp-init.sh \
     db-myapp-bootstrap.py \
     /srv/
COPY myapp /srv/myapp/

WORKDIR /srv/myapp/
RUN python3 -m compileall -q .
RUN pip_install -r requirements.txt && rm requirements.txt
RUN python3 manage.py compilemessages 2>&1
RUN create-db.sh myapp myapp django-migrate.sh

EXPOSE 8000
CMD [ "manage", "runserver", "0.0.0.0:8000" ]

and myapp-django-settings.py:

STATIC_ROOT = '/local/myapp/static/'
MEDIA_ROOT = '/local/myapp/media/'
DATABASES = { 'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
    'NAME': 'myapp' }}
CACHES = { 'default': {
    'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.filebased.FileBasedCache',
    'LOCATION': '/run/myapp/django-cache' }}

and myapp-cont-init.sh:

#!/bin/sh
. /usr/local/lib/cont-init-functions.sh
ENSURE_DIR_MODE=2755
ENSURE_DIR_USER=myapp
ENSURE_DIR_GROUP=nogroup

ensure_dir /run/myapp
ensure_dir /local/myapp
ensure_dir /local/myapp/static
ensure_dir /local/myapp/media

The example Django app uses local settings and secret key functions from a Django essentials package⁠:

update_settings_with_file(__name__,
                          environ.get('DJANGO_LOCAL_SETTINGS', 'local_settings'),
                          quiet='DJANGO_LOCAL_SETTINGS' in environ)
update_secret_from_file(__name__, environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY_FILE', 'secret_key'))