README.md

   1 ### About
   2
   3 - [Docker](https://docker.com/) is an open source project to pack, ship and run any Linux application in a lighter weight, faster container than a traditional virtual machine.
   4
   5 - Docker makes it much easier to deploy [a Discourse forum](https://github.com/discourse/discourse) on your servers and keep it updated. For background, see [Sam's blog post](http://samsaffron.com/archive/2013/11/07/discourse-in-a-docker-container).
   6
   7 - The templates and base image configure Discourse with the Discourse team's recommended optimal defaults.
   8
   9 ### Getting Started
  10
  11 The simplest way to get started is via the **standalone** template, which can be installed in 30 minutes or less. For detailed install instructions, see
  12
  13 https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
  14
  15 ### Directory Structure
  16
  17 #### `/cids`
  18
  19 Contains container ids for currently running Docker containers. cids are Docker's "equivalent" of pids. Each container will have a unique git like hash.
  20
  21 #### `/containers`
  22
  23 This directory is for container definitions for your various Discourse containers. You are in charge of this directory, it ships empty.
  24
  25 #### `/samples`
  26
  27 Sample container definitions you may use to bootstrap your environment. You can copy templates from here into the containers directory.
  28
  29 #### `/shared`
  30
  31 Placeholder spot for shared volumes with various Discourse containers. You may elect to store certain persistent information outside of a container, in our case we keep various logfiles and upload directory outside. This allows you to rebuild containers easily without losing important information. Keeping uploads outside of the container allows you to share them between multiple web instances.
  32
  33 #### `/templates`
  34
  35 [pups](https://github.com/samsaffron/pups)-managed templates you may use to bootstrap your environment.
  36
  37 #### `/image`
  38
  39 Dockerfile for both the base image `/discourse_base` and discourse image `/discourse`.
  40
  41 - `/discourse_base` contains all the OS dependencies including runit, postgres, nginx, ruby.
  42
  43 - `/discourse` builds on the base image and configures a discourse user and `/var/www/discourse` directory for the Discourse source.
  44
  45 The Docker repository will always contain the latest built version at: https://index.docker.io/u/samsaffron/discourse/ , you should not need to build the base image.
  46
  47 ### Launcher
  48
  49 The base directory contains a single bash script which is used to manage containers. You can use it to "bootstrap" a new container, enter, start, stop and destroy a container.
  50
  51 ```
  52 Usage: launcher COMMAND CONFIG [--skip-prereqs]
  53 Commands:
  54     start:      Start/initialize a container
  55     stop:       Stop a running container
  56     restart:    Restart a container
  57     destroy:    Stop and remove a container
  58     enter:      Use docker exec to enter a container
  59     logs:       Docker logs for container
  60     bootstrap:  Bootstrap a container for the config based on a template
  61     rebuild:    Rebuild a container (destroy old, bootstrap, start new)
  62 ```
  63
  64 If the environment variable "SUPERVISED" is set to true, the container won't be detached, allowing a process monitoring tool to manage the restart behaviour of the container.
  65
  66 ### Container Configuration
  67
  68 The beginning of the container definition can contain the following "special" sections:
  69
  70 #### templates:
  71
  72 ```
  73 templates:
  74   - "templates/cron.template.yml"
  75   - "templates/postgres.template.yml"
  76 ```
  77
  78 This template is "composed" out of all these child templates, this allows for a very flexible configuration structure. Furthermore you may add specific hooks that extend the templates you reference.
  79
  80 #### expose:
  81
  82 ```
  83 expose:
  84   - "2222:22"
  85   - "127.0.0.1:20080:80"
  86 ```
  87
  88 Expose port 22 inside the container on port 2222 on ALL local host interfaces. In order to bind to only one interface, you may specify the host's IP address as `([<host_interface>:[host_port]])|(<host_port>):<container_port>[/udp]` as defined in the [docker port binding documentation](http://docs.docker.com/userguide/dockerlinks/)
  89
  90
  91 #### volumes:
  92
  93 ```
  94 volumes:
  95   - volume:
  96       host: /var/discourse/shared
  97       guest: /shared
  98
  99 ```
 100
 101 Expose a directory inside the host to the container.
 102
 103 #### links:
 104 ```
 105 links:
 106   - link:
 107       name: postgres
 108       alias: postgres
 109 ```
 110
 111 Links another container to the current container. This will add `--link postgres:postgres`
 112 to the options when running the container.
 113
 114 ### Upgrading Discourse
 115
 116 The Docker setup gives you multiple upgrade options:
 117
 118 1. Use the front end at http://yoursite.com/admin/upgrade to upgrade an already running image.
 119
 120 2. Create a new base image manually by running:
 121   - `./launcher rebuild my_image`
 122
 123 ### Single Container vs. Multiple Container
 124
 125 The samples directory contains a standalone template. This template bundles all of the software required to run Discourse into a single container. The advantage is that it is easy.
 126
 127 The multiple container configuration setup is far more flexible and robust, however it is also more complicated to set up. A multiple container setup allows you to:
 128
 129 - Minimize downtime when upgrading to new versions of Discourse. You can bootstrap new web processes while your site is running and only after it is built, switch the new image in.
 130 - Scale your forum to multiple servers.
 131 - Add servers for redundancy.
 132 - Have some required services (e.g. the database) run on beefier hardware.
 133
 134 If you want a multiple container setup, see the `data.yml` and `web_only.yml` templates in the samples directory. To ease this process, `launcher` will inject an env var called `DISCOURSE_HOST_IP` which will be available inside the image.
 135
 136 WARNING: In a multiple container configuration, *make sure* you setup iptables or some other firewall to protect various ports (for postgres/redis).
 137 On Ubuntu, install the `ufw` or `iptables-persistent` package to manage firewall rules.
 138
 139 ### Email
 140
 141 For a Discourse instance to function properly Email must be set up. Use the `SMTP_URL` env var to set your SMTP address, see sample templates for an example. The Docker image does not contain postfix, exim or another MTA, it was omitted because it is very tricky to set up correctly.
 142
 143 ### Troubleshooting
 144
 145 View the container logs: `./launcher logs my_container`
 146
 147 Spawn a shell inside your container using `./launcher enter my_container`. This is the most foolproof method if you have host root access.
 148
 149 If you see network errors trying to retrieve code from `github.com` or `rubygems.org` try again - sometimes there are temporary interruptions and a retry is all it takes.
 150
 151 Behind a proxy network with no direct access to the Internet? Add proxy information to the container environment by adding to the existing `env` block in the `container.yml` file:
 152
 153 ```yaml
 154 env:
 155     …existing entries…
 156     HTTP_PROXY: http://proxyserver:port/
 157     http_proxy: http://proxyserver:port/
 158     HTTPS_PROXY: http://proxyserver:port/
 159     https_proxy: http://proxyserver:port/
 160 ```
 161
 162 ### Security
 163
 164 Directory permissions in Linux are UID/GID based, if your numeric IDs on the
 165 host do not match the IDs in the guest, permissions will mismatch. On clean
 166 installs you can ensure they are in sync by looking at `/etc/passwd` and
 167 `/etc/group`, the Discourse account will have UID 1000.
 168
 169
 170 ### Advanced topics
 171
 172 - [Setting up SSL with Discourse Docker](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-ssl-for-your-discourse-docker-setup/13847)
 173 - [Multisite configuration with Docker](https://meta.discourse.org/t/multisite-configuration-with-docker/14084)
 174 - [Linking containers for a multiple container setup](https://meta.discourse.org/t/linking-containers-for-a-multiple-container-setup/20867)
 175 - [Using Rubygems mirror to improve connection problem in China](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-rubygems-org-with-taobao-mirror-to-resolve-network-error-in-china/21988/1)
 176
 177 ### Developing with Vagrant
 178
 179 If you are looking to make modifications to this repository, you can easily test
 180 out your changes before committing, using the magic of
 181 [Vagrant](http://vagrantup.com).  Install Vagrant as per [the default
 182 instructions](http://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/installation/index.html), and
 183 then run:
 184
 185     vagrant up
 186
 187 This will spawn a new Ubuntu VM, install Docker, and then await your
 188 instructions.  You can then SSH into the VM with `vagrant ssh`, become
 189 `root` with `sudo -i`, and then you're right to go.  Your live git repo is
 190 already available at `/var/discourse`, so you can just `cd /var/discourse`
 191 and then start running `launcher`.
 192
 193
 194 License
 195 ===
 196 MIT