Docker-for-Researcher (DfR) provides a research-orientied style of using Docker. It keeps the reproducibility and dependency separation advantanges of Docker, meanwhile makes running everything in docker fast and effortless on the host, like that:
dock run <container-tag> python3 dir_on_host/test.py /data-on-host
where <container-tag> is a custom container set up by DfR.
Docker or nvidia-docker. Tested on Ubuntu 18.04 only.
git clone https://github.com/RalphMao/Docker-for-Researcher.git
cd Docker-for-Researcher
bash setup.sh
The mapping configuration file is under ~/.docker/dockpath. All configured source paths in host machine will be mapped and mounted in every docker container created by DfR.
Suppose you have a code under development at ~/experiment/test.py. On the host machine, it runs with Python-3.5 by python3 experiment/test.py /test-data. Now you would like to test it with Python-3.9 inside a docker container, as installing Python-3.9 may be cumbersome or conflicting on the host.
First pull a python-3.9 image.
docker pull python:3.9.0rc2-slim-buster
Next you can start a container with tag py-3.9, and dock command will set every essential configurations like user id, directory mapping.
dock start py-3.9 python:3.9.0rc2-slim-buster
After that you will be able to run every command in docker like in the host!
dock run py-3.9 python3 --version
If you figure that there is still missing dependency like numpy, you can install it with root privilege (or just enter the container like normal and install everything).
dock rootrun py-3.9 pip install numpy
# If you are using docker with root, this command might be needed
# xhost +local:root
Pull nvidia cudagl docker image, as OpenGL is already setup in the image.
docker pull nvidia/cudagl:10.1-devel-ubuntu18.04
Start a container with GUI forwarding turned on.
dock startgui cudagl nvidia/cudagl:10.1-devel-ubuntu18.04
Install an GUI app, you can use any app you need.
dock rootrun cudagl apt-get update
dock rootrun cudagl apt-get install mesa-utils -y
You should be able to see gears turning.
dock run cudagl glxgears
- Directory remapping may cause unwanted changes to your original command. Therefore, it is recommended to use the same directory naming in host/container to avoid potential directory resolving issues.
- Passing strings into the command may be problematic, as it is likely to be preprocessed by shell and misinterpreted by dock.