Communicating between docker containers - docker

I'm still a newbie and trying to learning the docker concept. I want to read the JSON file present in one Ubuntu container from the another Ubuntu container. How to do this in docker? Note that, I have to send the JSON from the first container through HTTP. Any idea on how to implement this? Any explanation or sample code on this would be really great.

If your first docker container declare a VOLUME, the other can be run with --volumes-from=<first_container>.
That would mount the declared path of the first container into the second one, effectively sharing a file or folder from the first container in the second.
Note that a container which is just created (not docker run, but docker create) is effectively a data volume container, there only to be mounted (--volumes-from) by other containers.
With http, that means the second container must know about the first (and its EXPOSE'd ports)
You will run the second container with --link=alias:firstContainer: that will allow you to contact alias:port, which is actually the url+port of the first container.
See "Communication across links"

Related

How to run a specific docker file with necessary volumes inside of another docker container?

I'm trying to run a program called Isaac-Sim from inside of an outer docker container (called container A for reference), but Isaac-Sim already runs in its own docker container. The end goal is to modify this to use Isaac output, but for now I just need to make a basic container that can run Isaac inside of it to get started. In addition to needing access to the specific image, it also has a lot of volumes that mount files from the main OS it needs to properly work. I'm pretty unfamiliar with docker and have tried looking stuff up, but am just not quite sure where to start.
From my understanding so far, I would need to mount the volumes Isaac needs inside of container A and define the volumes for the Isaac container relative to the container A file path rather than the main OS. I would also need to make a volume in container A -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock. This should allow me to run a docker run command inside of container A and have it start a parrallel container. However, what I'm not sure of is how to get access to the actual image for the Isaac container inside of container A. It's a rather lengthy installation process, so I don't want to reinstall it on container A every time I run it, I'd rather just volumize where it already is...but I'm not quite sure where that is.

Docker volume from existent container

I'm kind of stuck,
I have a docker container that is running, and that container runs some elasticsearch inside.
But I forgot to use volume on the first deploy. So my container has lots of data inside, in a single folder in /app/data.
I would like to use the same container but use volume on that folder, without losing data inside...
So it will be possible to rebuild other containers to use the same volume.
Have you some tips to share?
The important thing is not to remove your container, or you'll lose all that data. I think docker cp is your friend here (docs here). Copy the data to the host, then start another container with a volume.
Once you've secured your data, you can stop and remove the first container.

When do I need Docker Volumes?

Trying to make sure I understand the proper usage of docker volumes. If I have a container running MongoDB that I plan to start and stop do I need a volume configured with I "docker run" the first time? My understanding is that if use Docker run once, then docker stop/start my data is saved inside the container. The volume is more useful if multiple containers want access to the data. Is that accurate or am I misunderstanding something?
Starting and stopping a container will not delete the container specific data. However, you upgrade containers by replacing them with new containers. Any changes to the container specific read/write layer will be lost when that happens, and the new container will go back to it's initial state. If there are files inside your container that you want to preserve when the container is replaced, then you need to store those files in a volume, and then mount that same volume in the new container.

Deploy web app in docker data container vs volume

I'm confused about common consensus that one shouldn't use data containers. I have specific use case that I want to accomplish.
I want to have docker nginx container and behind it some other container with application. To run newest version of my app I want to download ready container from my private docker registry. The application is for now purely static html, javascript something.
So my plan is to create docker image which will hold the files, and will specify a named volume in some /webapp folder. The nginx container will serve this volume. I do not see any other way how to move bunch of files to remote system the "docker containerized" way. Am I not actually creating cursed data container?
Anyway what happens during app containers exchange? When I stop the app container the volume remains accesible, as it is placed on host. When I pull and start new version of app container. The volume will be created again and prefiled with image files stored at the same location, replacing the content on host so the nginx container will server from now new version of the application.Right? What happens when I will reference volume that does not exist yet from the nginx container.
It seem that named values are not automatically filed with the content of the image. As well I'm not sure how to create named volume in docker file as this syntax taken from here doesn't work
FROM training/webapp
VOLUME webapp:/webapp
I think you might want what i have described here https://stackoverflow.com/a/41576040/3625317
The problem with volumes is, that when a container is recreated, not docker-compose down but rather docker-compose pull + up, the new container will not have your "new code stored in the volume" but rather, due to the recycled volume, still the old anon volume. The point is, you will need a anon-volume for the code anyway, since you want it redeployable, not a named volume since you want the code to be exchangeable.
On re-create the anon-volume is not removed, that said, lets say you have the image:v1 right now and you pull image:v2 and then do a docker-compose up. It will recreate your container based on image:v2 - when this finished, you will have a new container, but the code is still from the old container, which was based on image:v1, since the anon-volume has not been replaced, it was re-assigned. docker-compose down && docker-compose up will resolve that for you - but you have to keep this in mind when dealing with your idea. (down removes anon-volumes)
In general, there is a pro / con, see my other post.
Data-containers in general have a other meaning and have been replaced by so called named volumes. Data-containers have been used to establish a volume-mount which is "named" and not based on a anon-volume.
In the past, you had to create a container with a volume, and later use a container-name based mount of this volume ( the container would be the static / name part ), today, you just create a named volume name and mount by this volume-name, no need for a busybox killed after start based container-name based volume mount.

Appropriate use of Volumes - to push files into container?

I was reading Project Atomic's guidance for images which states that the 2 main use cases for using a volume are:-
sharing data between containers
when writing large files to disk
I have neither of these use cases in my example using an Nginx image. I intended to mount a host directory as a volume in the path of the Nginx docroot in the container. This is so that I can push changes to a website's contents into the host rather then addressing the container. I feel it is easier to use this approach since I can - for example - just add my ssh key once to the host.
My question is, is this an appropriate use of a data volume and if not can anyone suggest an alternative approach to updating data inside a container?
One of the primary reasons for using Docker is to isolate your app from the server. This means you can run your container anywhere and get the same result. This is my main use case for it.
If you look at it from that point of view, having your container depend on files on the host machine for a deployed environment is counterproductive- running the same container on a different machine may result in different output.
If you do NOT care about that, and are just using docker to simplify the installation of nginx, then yes you can just use a volume from the host system.
Think about this though...
#Dockerfile
FROM nginx
ADD . /myfiles
#docker-compose.yml
web:
build: .
You could then use docker-machine to connect to your remote server and deploy a new version of your software with easy commands
docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d
even better, you could do
docker build -t me/myapp .
docker push me/myapp
and then deploy with
docker pull
docker run
There's a number of ways to achieve updating data in containers. Host volumes are a valid approach and probably the simplest way to achieve making your data available.
You can also copy files into and out of a container from the host. You may need to commit afterwards if you are stopping and removing the running web host container at all.
docker cp /src/www webserver:/www
You can copy files into a docker image build from your Dockerfile, which is the same process as above (copy and commit). Then restart the webserver container from the new image.
COPY /src/www /www
But I think the host volume is a good choice.
docker run -v /src/www:/www webserver command
Docker data containers are also an option for mounted volumes but they don't solve your immediate problem of copying data into your data container.
If you ever find yourself thinking "I need to ssh into this container", you are probably doing it wrong.
Not sure if I fully understand your request. But why you need do that to push files into Nginx container.
Manage volume in separate docker container, that's my suggestion and recommend by Docker.io
Data volumes
A data volume is a specially-designated directory within one or more containers that bypasses the Union File System. Data volumes provide several useful features for persistent or shared data:
Volumes are initialized when a container is created. If the container’s base image contains data at the specified mount point, that existing data is copied into the new volume upon volume initialization.
Data volumes can be shared and reused among containers.
Changes to a data volume are made directly.
Changes to a data volume will not be included when you update an image.
Data volumes persist even if the container itself is deleted.
refer: Manage data in containers
As said, one of the main reasons to use docker is to achieve always the same result. A best practice is to use a data only container.
With docker inspect <container_name> you can know the path of the volume on the host and update data manually, but this is not recommended;
or you can retrieve data from an external source, like a git repository

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