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-digital-ocean.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 pups 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 sshd, 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, ssh in, 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 nsenter to enter a container
  59     ssh:        Start a bash shell in a running container
  60     logs:       Docker logs for container
  61     mailtest:   Test the mail settings in a container
  62     bootstrap:  Bootstrap a container for the config based on a template
  63     rebuild:    Rebuild a container (destroy old, bootstrap, start new)
  64 ```
  65
  66 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.
  67
  68 ### Container Configuration
  69
  70 The beginning of the container definition can contain the following "special" sections:
  71
  72 #### templates:
  73
  74 ```
  75 templates:
  76   - "templates/cron.template.yml"
  77   - "templates/postgres.template.yml"
  78 ```
  79
  80 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.
  81
  82 #### expose:
  83
  84 ```
  85 expose:
  86   - "2222:22"
  87   - "127.0.0.1:20080:80"
  88 ```
  89
  90 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/)
  91
  92
  93 #### volumes:
  94
  95 ```
  96 volumes:
  97   - volume:
  98       host: /var/discourse/shared
  99       guest: /shared
 100
 101 ```
 102
 103 Expose a directory inside the host to the container.
 104
 105 #### links:
 106 ```
 107 links:
 108   - link:
 109       name: postgres
 110       alias: postgres
 111 ```
 112
 113 Links another container to the current container. This will add `--link postgres:postgres`
 114 to the options when running the container.
 115
 116 ### Upgrading Discourse
 117
 118 The Docker setup gives you multiple upgrade options:
 119
 120 1. Use the front end at http://yoursite.com/admin/upgrade to upgrade an already running image.
 121
 122 2. Create a new base image manually by running:
 123   - `./launcher rebuild my_image`
 124
 125 ### Single Container vs. Multiple Container
 126
 127 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.
 128
 129 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:
 130
 131 - 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.
 132 - Scale your forum to multiple servers.
 133 - Add servers for redundancy.
 134 - Have some required services (e.g. the database) run on beefier hardware.
 135
 136 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.
 137
 138 WARNING: In a multiple container configuration, *make sure* you setup iptables or some other firewall to protect various ports (for postgres/redis).
 139 On Ubuntu, install the `ufw` or `iptables-persistent` package to manage firewall rules.
 140
 141 ### Email
 142
 143 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.
 144
 145 ### Troubleshooting
 146
 147 View the container logs: `./launcher logs my_container`
 148
 149 You can ssh into your container using `./launcher ssh my_container`, we will automatically set up ssh access during bootstrap.
 150
 151 Spawn a shell inside your container using `./launcher enter my_container`. This is the most foolproof method if you have host root access.
 152
 153 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.
 154
 155 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:
 156
 157 ```yaml
 158 env:
 159     …existing entries…
 160     HTTP_PROXY: http://proxyserver:port/
 161     http_proxy: http://proxyserver:port/
 162     HTTPS_PROXY: http://proxyserver:port/
 163     https_proxy: http://proxyserver:port/
 164 ```
 165
 166 ### Security
 167
 168 Directory permissions in Linux are UID/GID based, if your numeric IDs on the
 169 host do not match the IDs in the guest, permissions will mismatch. On clean
 170 installs you can ensure they are in sync by looking at `/etc/passwd` and
 171 `/etc/group`, the Discourse account will have UID 1000.
 172
 173
 174 ### Advanced topics
 175
 176 - [Setting up SSL with Discourse Docker](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allowing-ssl-for-your-discourse-docker-setup/13847)
 177 - [Multisite configuration with Docker](https://meta.discourse.org/t/multisite-configuration-with-docker/14084)
 178 - [Linking containers for a multiple container setup](https://meta.discourse.org/t/linking-containers-for-a-multiple-container-setup/20867)
 179 - [Replace rubygems.org with taobao mirror to resolve network error in China](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-rubygems-org-with-taobao-mirror-to-resolve-network-error-in-china/21988/1)
 180
 181 License
 182 ===
 183 MIT