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A comment on Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by jjd1103 on Friday October 17, 2014 @09:06AM (#8470714)
Docker also enforces immutability. With a VM there's always the temptation to manually fix any issue that arises, and if you don't have some bulletproof way to document that then you'll have issues when you go to recreate the environment on a new machine. Docker kind of forces you to solve the original problem via the dockerfile, which is what will spawn images for any future installs anyway.
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Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by cpt1138 on Friday October 17, 2014 @11:08AM (#8471319)
Could you explain this more? I think my confusions stems from where the config comes from. Regardless of whether I have a bit-for-bit image or a vm created from a bunch of script commands, the immutability disappears when I apply the config.

So for my example If I have a role that specifies one instance of a a galera server. I have to config each one with the other servers in the pool. And each config will be dependent on the other server's config. So is Docker the first part (get the galera server instance running) and then there is some 2nd part that does the config so the instances in the cluster work together?

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Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by jjd1103 on Friday October 17, 2014 @11:42AM (#8471500)
To your first question: for me it's a on-paper vs reality difference. On paper you're exactly right re "vm created from a bunch of script commands" will end in the same state.

The reality is that once the VM is built there is the temptation/opportunity to make ad-hoc changes for any variety of reasons. Those ad-hoc changes sometimes make it back into the official build process, but sometimes they get forgotten in the heat of the moment. With docker you can't do this...to make the necessary change you are also changing the official build process. No opportunity for the two to deviate.

Second question: Yes, that is my understanding (though not a use case I have atm).

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Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by zwischenzug on Friday October 17, 2014 @12:50PM (#8471899)
Only true if you don't go to the network:

http://zwischenzugs.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/phoenix-deploym...

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Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by zenlikethat on Friday October 17, 2014 @02:16PM (#8472484)
Very good call out. For most use cases this actually turns out to be OK, but to reduce the surface area of this being a potential issue you could:

- Vendor dependencies (works to replace stuff like `go get` but probably not for apt packages etc.)

- Create a base image which handles the stuff you need to reach out to the network for (`apt-get install openjdk-6-jre` etc.) and is infrequently updated. Then the Dockerfile for the final application is `FROM me/myjava` and just does a few things that don't use the network like `ADD . /code`.

- Use `docker commit` instead of Dockerfiles for those steps (pretty gross IMO)

- Use CM in your docker build to install a very specific version of a package if you need (I'm not 100% sure this exists but it seems probable). This isn't perfect but tightens things up if you're worried about upstream breaking apt packages etc.

One of the goals of a new image format for Docker (this is 2.0 stuff) is to make the layers content-addressable by ID. That way, you will have a reasonable assurance that two Docker images constructed with the same Dockerfile in two different places will have the same IDs if they result in the exact same layers, and you will be able to see the point of divergence otherwise.

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Re:Ask HN: How do you use Docker in production? by zwischenzug on Saturday October 18, 2014 @05:59AM (#8475040)
"- Create a base image which handles the stuff you need to reach out to the network for (`apt-get install openjdk-6-jre` etc.) and is infrequently updated. Then the Dockerfile for the final application is `FROM me/myjava` and just does a few things that don't use the network like `ADD . /code`.

- Use `docker commit` instead of Dockerfiles for those steps (pretty gross IMO)

- Use CM in your docker build to install a very specific version of a package if you need (I'm not 100% sure this exists but it seems probable). This isn't perfect but tightens things up if you're worried about upstream breaking apt packages etc."

These are some of the goals of ShutIt.

We had complex development needs due to technical debt, and dockerfiles simply didn't cut it, and I got frustrated with the indirection of chef/puppet/ansible. I also needed the several hundred devs in my company to get productive quickly, so transferring all the little bash scripts and storing it in docker was the path of least resistance.

It's out of date and heavily edited, but I talk about this here:

http://www.youtube.com/ianmiell

and here:

http://ianmiell.github.io/shutit/

and on my blog:

http://zwischenzugs.wordpress.com/

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