jumoel/unison repository overview

⁠docker-unison

A Unison Docker container for fast file synchronization, i.e. on OSX where both VirtualBox shares as well as NFS is awfully slow.

⁠Requirements

The only requirement is unison. It can be installed from your favorite package manager such as apt or brew.

⁠Usage

With pure Docker (and, in this case, dlite⁠):

$ UNISON=(docker run -d -p 5000:5000 jumoel/unison)
$ unison . socket://local.docker:5000/ -auto -batch
$ docker run --rm --volumes-from=$UNISON busybox ls -l /app

The -auto option for unison makes it run almost automatically and -batch makes it run without waiting for user input. See unison -help for more options.

Usage with docker-compose is similarly simple:

version: "2"
services:
  consumer:
    image: busybox
    command: sh -c "sleep 5 && ls -l /app"
    volumes_from:
      - unison
  unison:
    image: jumoel/unison
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"

To test it, run:

$ docker-compose up

In a new terminal, then hurry up and run

$ unison . socket://local.docker:5000/ -auto -batch

The sleep 5 && ls -l /app allows for time to synchronize the unison folder before listing the contents of it. In a real scenario, the unison service will probably need to be started separately, so an initial synchronization can be run before the consumer service needs the files.

⁠Configuration

The container by default synchronizes to and shares the /app folder, but that can be configured with the UNISON_WORKING_DIR environment variable⁠.

Unison is set up as ENTRYPOINT⁠, so additional parameters when running the container will be passed on to the program.