@stencila/dockter

Dockter : a Docker image builder for researchers

Docker is a good tool for creating reproducible computing environments. But creating truely reproducible Docker images can be difficult. Dockter aims to make it easier for researchers to create Docker images for their research projects. Dockter automatically creates and manages a Docker image for your project based on your source source code.

🦄 Features that are not yet implemented are indicated by unicorn emoji. Usually they have a link next to them, like this 🦄 #2, indicating the relevent issue where you can help make the feature a reality. It's readme driven development with calls to action to chase after mythical vaporware creatures! So hip.

• Features
  • Automatically builds a Docker image for your project
    • R
    • Python
    • Node.js
    • Jupyter
  • Efficiently handling of updates to project code
  • Generates structured meta-data for your project
  • Easy to pick up, easy to throw away
• Install
  • CLI
  • Package
• Use
  • CLI
    • Compiling an environment
    • Executing an environment
  • Router and server
• Architecture
• Develop
• See also
• FAQ
• Acknowledgments

Features

Automatically builds a Docker image for your project

Dockter scans your project folder and builds a Docker image for it. If the the folder already has a Dockerfile, then Dockter will build the image from that. If not, Dockter will scan the files in the folder, generate a .Dockerfile and build the image from that. How Dockter builds the image from your source code depends on the language.

R

If the folder contains a R DESCRIPTION file then Docker will build an image with the R packages listed under Imports installed. e.g.

Package: myrproject
Version: 1.0.0
Date: 2017-10-01
Imports:
   ggplot2

The Package and Version fields are required in a DESCRIPTION file. The Date field is used to define which CRAN snapshot to use. MRAN daily snapshots began 2014-09-08 so the date should be on or after that.

If the folder does not contain a DESCRIPTION file then Dockter will scan all the R files (files with the extension .R or .Rmd) in the folder for package import or usage statements, like library(package) and package::function(), and create a .DESCRIPTION file for you.

If the folder contains a main.R file, Dockter will set that to be the default script to run in any container created from the image.

Python

If the folder contains a 🦄 #3 requirements.txt file, or a 🦄 #4 Pipfile, Dockter will copy it into the Docker image and use pip to install the specified packages.

If the folder does not contain either of those files then Dockter will 🦄 #5 scan all the folder's .py files for import statements and create a .requirements.txt file for you.

Node.js

If the folder contains a 🦄 #7 package.json file, Dockter will copy it into the Docker image and use npm to install the specified packages.

If the folder does not contain a package.json file, Dockter will 🦄 #8 scan all the folder's .js files for import or require statements and create a .package.json file for you.

Jupyter

If the folder contains any 🦄 #9 .ipynb files, Dockter will scan the code cells in those files for any Python import or R library statements and extract a list of package dependencies. It will also 🦄 #10 add Jupyter to the built Docker image.

Efficiently handling of updates to project code

Docker layered filesystem has advantages but it can cause real delays when you are updating your project dependencies. For example, see this issue for the workarounds used by Node.js developers to prevent long waits when they update their package.json. The reason this happens is that when you update a requirements file Docker throws away all the susequent layers, including the one where you install all your package dependencies.

Here's a simple motivating example of a Dockerized Python project. It's got a pip requirements.txt file which specifies that the project requires pandas which, to ensure reproducibility, is pinned to version 0.23.0,

pandas==0.23.0

The project has also got a Dockerfile that specifies which Python version we want, copies requirements.txt into the image, and installs the packages:

FROM python:3.7.0

COPY requirements.xt .
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

You can build a Docker image for that project using Docker,

docker build .

Docker will download the base Python image (if you don't yet have it), and download five packages (pandas and it's four dependencies) and install them. This took over 9 minutes when we ran it.

Now, let's say that we want to do some plotting in our library, so we add matplotlib as a dependency in requirements.txt,

pandas==0.23.0
matplotlib==3.0.0

When we do docker build . again Docker notices that the requirements.txt file has changed and so throws away that layer and all subsequant ones. This means that it will download and install all the necesary packages again, including the ones that we previously installed - and takes longer than the first install. For a more contrieved illustration of this, simply add a space to a line in the requirements.txt file and notice how the package install gets repeated all over again.

Now, let's add a special # dockter comment to the Dockerfile before the COPY directive,

FROM python:3.7.0

# dockter

COPY requirements.xt .
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

The comment is ignored by Docker but tells dockter to run all subsequent directives and commit them into a single layer,

dockter build .

🔧 Finish description of commit-based approach and illustrate speed up over normal Docker builds

Generates structured meta-data for your project

Dockter has been built to expose a JSON-LD API so that it works with other tools. It will parse a Dockerfile into a JSON-LD SoftwareSourceCode node extracting meta-data about the Dockerfile and build it into a SoftwareEnvironment node with links to the source files and the build image.

🔧 Illustrate how this is done for all project sources including non Dockerfiles

🔧 Replace this JSON-LD with final version

{
  "@context": "https://schema.stenci.la",
  "type": "SoftwareSourceCode",
  "id": "https://hub.docker.com/#sha256:27d6e441706e89dac442c69c3565fc261b9830dd313963cb5488ba418afa3d02",
  "author": [],
  "text": "FROM busybox\nLABEL description=\"Prints the current date and time at UTC, to the nearest second, in ISO-8601 format\" \\\n      author=\"Nokome Bentley <[e-mail]>\"\nCMD date -u -Iseconds\n",
  "programmingLanguage": "Dockerfile",
  "messages": [],
  "description": "Prints the current date and time at UTC, to the nearest second, in ISO-8601 format"
}

Easy to pick up, easy to throw away

Dockter is designed to make it easier to get started creating Docker images for your project. But it's also designed not to get in your way or restrict you from using bare Docker. You can easily and individually override any of the steps that Dockter takes to build an image.

• Code analysis: To stop Dockter doing code analysis and take over specifying your project's package dependencies, just remove the leading '.' from the .DESCRIPTION, .requirements.txt or .package.json file that Dockter generates.

• Dockerfile generation: Dockter aims to generate readable Dockerfiles that conform to best practices. They're a good place to start learning how to write your own Dockerfiles. To stop Dockter generating a .Dockerfile, and start editing it yourself, just rename it to Dockerfile.

• Image build: Dockter manage builds use a special comment in the Dockerfile, so you can stop using Dockter alltogether and build the same image using Docker (it will just take longer if you change you project dependencies).

Install

Dockter is available as pre-compiled, standalone command line tool, or as a Node.js package.

CLI

If you don't have Node.js or would simply prefer a standalone binary, you can download the latest release from the releases page.

Package

npm install @stencila/dockter

You will need to install Docker if you don't already have it on your system.

Use

This package is primarily designed to be used a compiler service within a Stencila deployment (e.g. stencila/cloud). But you can also use it standalone via the API or command line interface.

CLI

The command line interface (CLI) is a good way to get an understanding of what this package does. Essentially, it just exposes the compiler API on the command line.

Compiling an environment

The most basic thing that this package does is to read a Dockerfile, parse it to extract metadata, build a Docker image for it, and run that image as a Docker container.

Here's a very simple example Dockerfile. It uses the tiny busybox image as a base, adds some meta-data about the image, and then specifies the command to run to print out the date.

FROM busybox
LABEL description="Returns the current date and time at UTC, to the nearest second, in ISO-8601 format" \
      author="Nokome Bentley <[e-mail]>"
CMD date -u -Iseconds

You can use the compile command to a Dockerfile like this into a JSON-LD SoftwareEnvironment node,

dockter compile Dockerfile > environ.jsonld

{
  "@context": "https://schema.stenci.la",
  "type": "SoftwareSourceCode",
  "id": "https://hub.docker.com/#sha256:27d6e441706e89dac442c69c3565fc261b9830dd313963cb5488ba418afa3d02",
  "author": [],
  "text": "FROM busybox\nLABEL description=\"Prints the current date and time at UTC, to the nearest second, in ISO-8601 format\" \\\n      author=\"Nokome Bentley <[e-mail]>\"\nCMD date -u -Iseconds\n",
  "programmingLanguage": "Dockerfile",
  "messages": [],
  "description": "Prints the current date and time at UTC, to the nearest second, in ISO-8601 format"
}

🔧 Replace this JSON output when a more final version available.

The default CLI output format is JSON but you can get YAML, which is easier to read, by using the --format=yaml option. You can turn off building of the Docker image (to just extract meta-data) using --build=false. Use dockter compile --help for more help.

Executing an environment

dockter execute environ.jsonld

dockter execute Dockerfile

Router and server

The Express router provides PUT /compile and PUT /execute endpoints (which do the same thing as the corresponding CLI commands). You can serve them using,

npm start

Or, during development using,

npm run server

A minimal example of how to integrate the router into your own Express server,

const app = require('express')()
const { docker } = require('@stencila/dockter')

const app = express()
app.use('/docker', docker)
app.listen(3000)

Architecture

Dockter implements a compiler design pattern. Source files are parsed into a SoftwareEnvironment instance (the equivalent of an AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) in other programming language compilers) which is then used to generate a Dockerfile which is then built into a Docker image.

The parser classes e.g. PythonParser, RParser scan for relevant source files and generate SoftwareEnvironment instances. The generator classes e.g. PythonGenerator, RGenerator generates a Dockerfile for a given SoftwareEnvironment. DockerGenerator is a super-generator which combines the other generators. DockerBuilder class builds DockerCompiler links all of these together.

For example, if a folder has single file in it code.py, PythonParser will parse that file and create a SoftwareEnvironment instance, which DockerGenerator uses to generate a Dockerfile, which DockerBuilder uses to build a Docker image.

Develop

We 💕 contributions! To get started,

git clone https://github.com/stencila/dockter
cd dockter
npm install

To run the CLI during development use, npm run cli -- <args> e.g.

npm run cli -- compile tests/fixtures/dockerfile-date/Dockerfile

This uses ts-node to compile and run Typescript on the fly so that you don't need to do a build step first.

Linting and testing

Then take a look at the docs (online or inline) and start hacking! Please check that your changes pass linting and unit tests,

npm run lint # or, make lint
npm test # or, make text

Use npm test -- <test file path> to run a single test file

You can setup a Git pre-commit hook to perform these checks automatically before each commit using make hooks.

Check that any changes you've made are covered 🏅 by unit tests using,

npm run cover # or, make cover
open coverage/lcov-report/index.html

Documentation generation

If you've been working on in-code documentation 🙏 you can check that by building and viewing the docs,

npm run docs # or, make docs
open docs/index.html

Commit messages

Please use conventional changelog style commit messages e.g. docs(readme): fixed spelling mistake. This help with automated semantic versioning. To make this easier, Commitzen is a development dependency and can be used via npm or make:

npm run commit # or, make commit

Continuous integration

Linting, test coverage, binary builds, package builds, and documentation generation are done on each push on Travis CI. semantic-release is enabled to automate version management, Github releases and NPM package publishing.

See also

Related Stencila packages include:

• 🦄 stencila/tunix: compiles JSON-LD SoftwareEnvironment nodes to NixOS environments
• 🦄 stencila/kubex: executes JSON-LD SoftwareEnvironment nodes on Kubernetes clusters

There are several projects that create Docker images from source code and/or requirements files:

• alibaba/derrick
• jupyter/repro2docker
• Gueils/whales
• o2r-project/containerit
• openshift/source-to-image
• ViDA-NYU/reprozip

Dockter is similar to repro2docker, containerit, and reprozip in that it is aimed at researchers doing data analysis (and supports R) whereas most other tools are aimed at software developers (and don't support R). Dockter differs to these projects principally in that by default (but optionally) it installs the necessary Stencila language packages so that the image can talk to Stencila client interfaces an provide code execution services. Like repro2docker it allows for multi-language images but has the additional features of package dependency analysis of source code, managed builds and generated of image meta-data.

FAQ

Why is this a Node.js package?

We've implemented this as a Node.js package for easier integration into Stencila's Node.js based desktop and cloud deployments.

Acknowledgments

Dockter was inspired by similar tools for researchers including binder and repro2docker. It relies on dockerode, docker-file-parser, and of course Docker.