Using Docker it's possible to fire up Emoncms on a bare system (assuming Docker is installed) in a couple of minutes with all the LAMP install & config taken care of.

This is great for development since it's possible to play about with Emoncms running in a Docker container without fear of messing up your main Emoncms install.

In the future, Docker can even be used as a deployment tool for Emoncms. In theory, it should be possible to deploy the Docker container on any server within minutes :-)

We have taken a multi-container approach with php-apache running in one container and the MYSQL database running in another. The containers are linked using docker-compose.

To do list

Install Docker

Offical Docker install guide

If running Linux Docker-compose will also need to be installed separately. Docker-toolbox on Mac and Windows includes Docker-compose

Offical Docker Compose install guide

If running on Linux highly recomended to create Docker group to avoid having to use sudo with Docker commands:

$ sudo groupadd docker
$ sudo usermod -aG docker <YOUR-USER-NAME>
$ docker run hello-world

After restarting terminal (logout & logback in), you should now be able to docker run hello-world without sudo.

Quick start

Pull openenergymonitor/emoncms:latest from docker hub and use Docker-compose to link the emoncms container (PHP & Apache) to the MYSQL container.

$ git clone https://github.com/emoncms/emoncms-docker
$ cd emoncms-docker
$ docker pull openenergymonitor/emoncms:latest
$ docker-compose up

That's it! Emoncms should now be running in Docker container, browse to http://localhost:8080

Setup dev enviroment

If you want to edit the emoncms file (dev) it's best to clone them externally to docker then mount volume into the container:

Uncommnet in docker-compose.override.yml:

volumes:
  ##mount emoncms files from local FS for dev
  - ./emoncms:/var/www/html

Then clone the repos into ./emoncms

$ ./bin/setup_dev_repositories
$ docker-compose pull
$ docker-compose up

If you get an error bind: address already in use, this means there is already a process on the host machine listening on port 8080. You can check what processes are listening on ports by running sudo netstat -plnt. There are two options, either change the emoncms web container port to use a different port then rebuild the container or kill the process currently running on the host machine using the same port.

Build Emoncms Docker Containers

Git Clone

Note: If Emoncms Docker being used for production / testing (i.e modifing the Emoncms files at run-time is not required) there is no need to clone emoncms core & modules since by default the Emoncms git master branch is cloned when the containers are built (see Dockerfile), this cloned 'snapshot' is then overwritten by the Emoncms files mounted from local file-system when running development docker-compose (default)

Run the following script to clone the emoncms repository along with the dashboard and graph modules:

./bin/setup_dev_repositories

Further modules can be found in the emoncms git repo e.g. backup, wifi etc.

The file structure should look like:

+-- emoncms-docker
¦   +-- Dockerfile
¦   +-- docker-compose.yml
+-- emoncms
¦   +-- <emoncms-core files>
¦   +-- e.g index.php
¦   +-- Modules
¦       +-- <core-modules> e.g. admin, feed, input
¦       +-- <optional-modules> e.g dashboard

Customise config

MYSQL Database Credentials

For development the default settings in default.docker.env are used. For production a .env file should be created with secure database Credentials. See Production setup info below.

PHP Config

Edit config/php.ini to add custom php settings e.g. timezone (default Europe)

Build / update Docker container

Required on first run or if Dockerfile or Docker-compose.yml are changed:

$ docker-compose build

Start Emoncms containers

Start as foreground service:

$ docker-compose up

Stop with [CTRL + c]

That's it! Emoncms should now be runnning in Docker container, browse to http://localhost:8080

Start as background service:

$ docker-compose up -d

Docker compose up will start two containers:

emon_web which is based on the official Docker PHP-Apache image
emon_db which is based on the offical Docker MYSQL image

How Docker Compose works...

Infomation about how docker-copose workin in Emoncms Docker.

Development Vs Production

There are three docker compose files:

docker-compose.yml
docker-compose.override.yml
docker-compose.prod.yml

The first docker-compose.yml defines the base config; things that are common to both development and production.

The second file docker-compose.override.yml defines additional things for development enviroment e.g. use default.docker-env enviroment variables and mount emoncms files from local file-system instead of copy into container.

The third file docker-compose.prod.yml defines production specific setup e.g. expose port 80 and copy in files instead of mount. The production docker-compose file is docker-compose.prod.yml instead of docker-compose.override.yml when the Emoncms Docker contains are ran as 'proudcution'

This setup is based on the recomended Docker method, see Docker Multiple Compose Files Docs.

Development

The development enviroment with the base + override compose is used by default e.g:

$ docker-compose up

Production

To run the production compose setup run:

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

Files, storage & database info

Infomation about how files and databases work in Emoncms Docker.

Files

By default when running the development compose enviroment (see above) Emoncms files are mounted from the host file system in the emon_web Docker container at startup. This is desirable for dev. For production / deployment / clean testing run production docker compose (see above). This will copy emoncms files into the docker container on first run. Any changes made to the files inside the container will be lost when the container is stopped.

Storage

Storage for feed engines e.g. var/lib/phpfiwa are mounted as persistent Docker file volumes e.g.emon-phpfiwa. Data stored in these folders is persistent if the container is stopped / started but cannot be accessed outside of the container.

Database

Database storage /var/lib/mysql/data is mounted as persistent Docker volumes e.g.emon-db-data. Database data is persistent if the container is stopped / started but cannot be accessed outside of the container.

Useful Docker commands

Show running containers

$ docker ps

Stop / kill all running containers:

$ docker stop $(docker ps -a -q)

$ docker kill $(docker ps -a -q)

Remove all containers:

e.g. emon_web, emon_db

$ docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

Remove all images:

e.g. Base images: php-apache, mysql, Ubuntu pulled from Dockerhub

$ docker rmi $(docker images -q)

Attach a shell to a running container:

$ docker exec -it emoncmsdocker_web_1 /bin/bash

kmlucy/docker-emoncms