Use docker-compose to execute a script right before the container is stopped - docker-compose

Let's say I want to execute a cleanup script whenever container termination is triggered. How do I go about this using docker-compose?
This could be handy to automatically back up the files, databases, etc for the dev container.

docker containers are meant to be ephemeral:
By "ephemeral", we mean that the container can be stopped and destroyed, then rebuilt and replaced with an absolute minimum set up and configuration.
Building upon this concept docker itself does not offer anything to hook into the shutdown process. docker-compose is built on top of docker and also does not add such functionality.
Maybe you can rethink your problem the docker way to better fit the intended use of docker. Without further context it is hard to say what could be a good solution but maybe one of the following approaches helps you out:
docker stop sends a SIGTERM signal to the main process in the container. You could use a custom entrypoint or supervisor process that would trigger the appropriate actions on a SIGTERM. This approach requires custom containers. With the stop_signal attribute you can also configure a custom signa to be sent in your docker-compose.yml
if you just want to persist data files from the containers just configuring the right volumes might be enough
you could use docker events to listen and act upon any types of events emitted by the docker daemon

Related

Can I stop Azure Container Service for Linux from issuing Docker Pull commands?

I am using an Azure App Service (Linux containers) to host a container application. Unfortunately for me, the App Service periodically issues a new Docker Pull command like this:
2018-11-08 18:39:32.512 INFO - Issuing docker pull: imagename =library/ghost:2.2.4-alpine
I don't know why it is issuing this command, and I can't find out how to stop it doing so.
I want to stop it because although the volume on which my container stores data can survive restarts of the container, it doesn't seem to survive rebuilding the container. I suspect that this might be because I'm using the Docker Compose (preview), and the docker compose configuration sets a volume name and associates it with the container.
I currently have 'continuous deployment' toggled 'OFF' in the azure console, and I can't find any setting which seems to control whether or not the underlying app service is issuing the docker pull command.
Unfortunately I can't use the docker single container as the pre-built ghost images don't appear to be set up to store data in a volume outside the container.
I have had no luck in searching the App Service FAQs for information about this behaviour. I'm hoping that I've made a foolish mistake which is easy to fix, and that someone here will have seen this and fixed it themselves.
For your issue, you will know how to achieve what you want if you know the work process of Azure Web App for Container.
Each time when the Web App starts, no matter you restart it or restart itself because of the timeout, it will check the image if it should update. When you use the public Docker hub image, the update dependent on the Docker hub, not your order.
So the best way for you is to store the image in your private container registries like your own git hub or Azure Container Registry. And give the image a specific tag. This way make sure that if you do not update the image, the web app will do the check when it starts.

wait for other deployments to start running before other can be created?

I am creating the deployments/services using REST APIs. I send POST request with bodies which contain the JSON objects which create the applications on Openshift. After I call all the APIs, these objects get instantiated.
I have 2 deployments which are dependent on mongodb deployment but this mongodb takes a little longer to start running, while the two deployments which are dependent on mongodb start running earlier. This breaks the code inside the 2 deployments as the mongodb connection fails(since it is not up yet).
There could be 2 possible way I can fix this problem.
I put a delay after i create mongodb deployment and recursively call the API to check it's status if it is running or not.
Just like we make changes in docker-compose, with the key, depends-on which tell the docker-compose that all the dependencies should be started first and then the dependent container.
Is there any way this could be achieved in openshift?
Instead of implementing complex logic for dependency handling, use health checking mechanism of Kubernetes. If your application starts and doesn't see Mongo DB, let it crash. Kubernetes will keep restarting it until Mongo DB comes online, and your application becomes healthy and serving as well. Kubernetes won't send traffic to not yet healthy instances.
Docs: https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-liveness-readiness-probes/
Just like we make changes in docker-compose, with the key, depends-on which tell the docker-compose that all the dependencies should be started first and then the dependent container.
You might want to look into Init Containers for dependent container. They run to completion before container is actually started. Below excerpt is taken from referenced documentation (given below) for use cases that might be applicable to your issue:
They run to completion before any app Containers start, whereas app Containers run in parallel, so Init Containers provide an easy way to block or delay the startup of app Containers until some set of preconditions are met.
Examples
Here are some ideas for how to use Init Containers:
Wait for a service to be created with a shell command like:
for i in {1..100}; do sleep 1; if dig myservice; then exit 0; fi; done; exit 1
Register this Pod with a remote server from the downward API with a command like:
curl -X POST http://$MANAGEMENT_SERVICE_HOST:$MANAGEMENT_SERVICE_PORT/register -d ‘instance=$()&ip=$()’
Wait for some time before starting the app Container with a command like sleep 60.
Reference documentation:
https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/init-containers/
Alex has pointed out correct practice to follow with kubernetes. But if you still want directly depend on other pod phase you can use this pod-dependency-init-container that I have build. This will check if any pod with given labels is running before starting your pod.

Call one container from another in kubernetes

Say I have a container image that contains a large command-line program that is executed from the shell. I have another container that contains a scheduler whose job it is to invoke the first container when it receives a certain signal. For various reasons I don't want to put them in the same container (mainly because the scheduler can invoke many different tools, and different versions of those tools, and I don't want to have to put all the tools and their versions in the same container image.)
I know how to put two containers in the same pod. However, the default behavior is to run both containers at startup. What I want to be able to do is to have the scheduler be able to decide when to invoke the other container, and to be able to specify the command-line arguments (and ideally, environment variables) for it. Also, I need to know the exit status. Extra credit for getting stdout/stderr, but I can hack around with volumes if I need to.
I also know how to do this if the second container was a server, but in this case it's a shell program.
A quick way to do this is:
Add a kubectl proxy in your container startup
Then call a kubernetes job from the first pod.
This would create a lightweight solution in which the desired job can be queried for success state, seemingly fulfilling your requirements

Is there a way to cancel a handler after it was notified?

I've got an enrvironment consisting of a stack of dockerized microapps, where some are dependant from others, linked to each other and communicate over http on the docker interface. My problem was that the docker-compose tracked only the docker-compose.yml file and recreated containers only when the docker-compose.yml has been changed.
With ansible i can finally start tracking config files, that get mounted as volumes inside the containers, so they can be deployed from templates - which works fantastically.
Before ansible I used to run:
docker-compose stop <app> && docker-compose rm -f <app> && docker-compose up -d
to refresh a single app when I knew the mounted file has been changed and the volumes needed to be refreshed.
I've defined multiple roles with the docker_service module for each app each one with its own handler that, when notified, runs the code above, to refresh that particular app.
The problem is, when multiple apps have their mounted files changed, ansible notifies each handler and each one gets executed which is not exactly the case i need as when the primary container (on which others depend) gets recreated the others don't need to because they have already been recreated, yet their handlers also are being executed. So my question is: is there a way to cancel a notified handler? I know about flush_handlers but that just executes notified handlers, not exactly what I need.
You can use conditionals in handlers.
Use a flag variable to indicate that some handlers shouldn't execute.
- name: restart myapp1
shell: docker ...
when: not block_apps_restart

How to use Docker in the development/deployment workflow?

I'm not sure I completely understand the role of Docker in the process of development and deployment.
Say, I create a Dockerfile with nginx, some database and something else which creates a container and runs fine.
I drop it somewhere in the cloud and execute it to install and configure all the dependencies and environment settings.
Next, I have a repository with a web application which I want to run inside the container I created and deployed in the first 2 steps. I regularly work on it and push the changes.
Now, how do I integrate the web application into the container?
Do I put it as a dependency inside the Dockerfile I create in the 1st step and recreate the container each time from scratch?
Or, do I deploy the container once but have procedures inside Dockerfile that install utils that pull the code from repo by command or via hooks?
What if a container is running but I want to change some settings of, say, nginx? Do I add these changes into Dockerfile and recreate the image?
In general, what's the role of Docker in the daily app development routine? Is it used often if the infrastructure is running fine and only code is changing?
I think there is no singl "use only this" answer - as you already outlined, there are different viable concepts available.
Deployment to staging/production/pre-production
a)
Do I put it as a dependency inside the Dockerfile I create in the 1st step and recreate the container each time from scratch?
This is for sure the most docker`ish way and aligns fully with he docker-philosophy. It is highly portable, reproducible and suites anything, from one container to "swarm" thousands of. E.g. this concept has no issue suddenly scaling horizontally when you need more containers, lets say due to heavy traffic / load.
It also aligns with the idea that only the configuration/data should be dynamic in a docker container, not code / binaries /artifacts
This strategy should be chosen for production use, so when not as frequent deployments happen. If you care about downtimes during container-rebuilds (on upgrade), there are good concepts to deal with that too.
We use this for production and pre-production intances.
b)
Or, do I deploy the container once but have procedures inside
Dockerfile that install utils that pull the code from repo by command
or via hooks?
This is a more common practice for very frequent deployment. You can go the pull ( what you said ) or the push (docker cp / ssh scp) concept, while i guess the latter is preferred in this kind of environment.
We use this for any kind strategy for staging instances, which basically should reflect the current "codebase" and its status. We also use this for smoke-tests and CI, but depending on the application. If the app actually changes its dependencies a lot and a clean build requires a rebuild with those to really ensure stuff is tested as it is supposed to, we actually rebuild the image during CI.
Configuration management
1.
What if a container is running but I want to change some settings of,
say, nginx? Do I add these changes into Dockerfile and recreate the
image?
I am not using this as c) since this is configuration management, not applications deployment and the answer to this can be very complicated, depending on your case. In general, if redeployment needs configuration changes, it depends on your configuration management, if you can go with b) or always have to go a).
E.g. if you use https://github.com/markround/tiller with consul as the backend, you can push the configuration changes into consul, regenerating the configuration with tiller, while using consul watch -prefix /configuration tiller as a watch-task to react on those value changes.
This enables you to go b) and fix the configuration
You can also use https://github.com/markround/tiller and on deployment, e.g. change ENV vars or some kind of yml file ( tiller supports different backends ), and call tiller during deployment yourself. This most probably needs you to have ssh or you ssh on the host and use docker cp and docker exec
Development
In development, you generally reuse your docker-compose.yml file you use for production, but overload it with docker-compose-dev.yml to e.g. mount your code-folder, set RAILS_ENV=development, reconfigurat / mount some other configurations like xdebug or more verbose nginx loggin, whatever you need. You can also add some fake MTA-services like fermata and so on
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose-dev.yml up
docker-compose-dev.yml only overloads some values, it does not redefine it or duplicate it.
Depending on how powerful your configuration management is, you can also do a pre-installation during development stack up.
We actually use scaffolding for that, we use https://github.com/xeger/docker-compose and after running it, we use docker exec and docker cp to preinstall a instance or stage something. Some examples are here https://github.com/EugenMayer/docker-sync/wiki/7.-Scripting-with-docker-sync
If you are developing under OSX and you face performance issues due to OSXFS / code shares, you probably want to have a look at http://docker-sync.io ( i am biased though )