Compose Apps

Docker-compose applications, or “Compose Apps”, are how application development is approached with the FoundriesFactory™ Platform. However, Docker-compose does not specify how to distribute applications. Compose Apps fill in this gap for Factory devices.

Compose Apps in a Factory

Compose Apps are automatically managed from containers.git by naming convention. Any top-level directory containing docker-compose.yml gets distributed as a compose app. Here is an example source layout:

# containers.git
httpd/
      docker-compose.yml
      nginx.conf

# httpd/docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
  web:
    image: nginx:alpine
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

# httpd/nginx.conf
server {
  location / {
    return 200 'compose-apps';
  }
}

When changes are made in containers.git, the Factory will produce a new Target that includes the updated httpd compose app:

$ fioctl targets show 77

... <snip>

COMPOSE APP  VERSION
-----------  -------
httpd        hub.foundries.io/<factory>/httpd@sha256:0bbfe1b8e166e45cff477a731c5797a1ec8724a99a49b8f94d7ff851f2076924

Compose Apps Distribution

Compose apps are distributed by taking advantage of Docker Registry primitives. The httpd example above becomes a tarball stored in hub.foundries.io:

# httpd.tgz
./docker-compose.yml
./ngix.conf

The tarball is an exact copy of httpd’s directory layout in containers.git with one important exception: The publishing logic looks at each service image in the compose file and will pin it to the correct sha256 checksum at the time of publishing. For this example, nginx:alpine would become something like nginx:sha256@deadbeef. This ensures each version of the compose app is immutable.

Aktualizr-lite then has logic to grab this content from the Docker registry, validate it cryptographically, and extract it locally so that docker-compose can consume it.

How Does It Fit Together?

Changes to containers produce new TUF Targets that aktualizr-lite can install. The interesting part of the Target in this case is:

{
 ...
 "signed": {
   "targets": {
     "raspberrypi3-64-lmp-144" : {
       "custom" : {
         "docker_compose_apps" : {
            "httpd" : {
               "uri" : "hub.foundries.io/<factory>/httpd@sha256:deadbeef"
            }
            ....

Examples

Single Container Application

Many Factories can build their entire application as a single container. In this scenario containers.git layout might look like:

# simple-app/Dockerfile
FROM alpine
RUN apk --no-cache add python3
COPY ./app.py /usr/local/bin
CMD ["python3", "/usr/local/bin/app.py"]

# simple-app/app.py
import os, time
while True:
    print(os.environ['FROM_COMPOSE'])
    time.sleep(60)

# simple-app/docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
  app:
    image: hub.foundries.io/<factory>/simple-app:latest
    environment:
      FROM_COMPOSE: "this came from docker-compose.yml"

# simple-app/.composeappignores - There's no need to distribute the Dockerfile and app.py
Dockerfile
app.py

Non-comment lines of .composeappignores will match files according to Golang’s filepath.Match

Each change to containers.git will produce a new compose app with contents:

# simple-app.tgz
./docker-compose.yml

In this case hub.foundries.io/<factory>/simple-app:latest is pinned to the exact container built during the change to containers.git. The CI logic does this automatically.

A Flask Web App

This example uses multiple containers to build a typical Python3 Flask application:

# hello-world/Dockerfile
FROM alpine
RUN apk --no-cache add py3-flask
ENV FLASK_APP=app.py
ENV PYTHONPATH=/srv
COPY ./app.py /srv/app.py
CMD ["python3", "-m", "flask", "run"]

# hello-world/app.py
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def hello_world():
    return 'Hello, World!'

# hello-world-app/docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
  app:
    image: hub.foundries.io/<factory>/hello-world:latest
  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
    ports:
      - 80:80
    depends_on:
      - app

# hello-world-app/nginx.conf
server {
  location / {
      proxy_pass           http://app:5000/;
  }
}

Changes to containers.git does a couple of interesting things:

It will build and publish a version of the hello-world container. For this example, hub.foundries.io/<factory>/hello-world:GIT_SHORT_HASH
A compose app will be published. The compose app will include nginx.conf and a “pinned” docker-compose.yml. In this case the containers will be pinned to:
1. nginx:alpine: the sha256 checksum of nginx:alpine at the time this was built.
2. hub.foundries.io/<factory>/hello-world: the sha256 checksum of GIT_SHORT_HASH at the time this was built.