Docker Hosting

If you are engaged in Docker at an enterprise scale level, you may have faced challenges like:

  • I have to host multiple instances of an application (for Production, Test, Dev, Integration, …)

  • I have to host multiple applications for different clients on the same cluster.

  • I would like all those application instances to be isolated, to avoid common docker components ops or issues affecting them all.

  • How do I implement security between Docker environments ?

OpenSVC service provides the desired segregation.

_images/docker.multiple.instances.png

This tutorial explains these segregation capabilities.

Pre-requisites

  • OpenSVC agent installed (As described in the parent topic)

Services Creation

Let’s create 6 OpenSVC services, one for each applications named app1 and app2, and each environment named dev, int and prd.

We’ll format the namespace name as <app>-<env>, and all services name will be svc1.

$ for appli in app1 app2 ; do for env in dev int prd ; do svcmgr create -s $appli-$env/svc1 ; done ; done

$ svcmon -s 'app[12]-*/*' --sections services
Services                      aubergine nuc-cva
 app1-dev/svc1 n/a failover | /*
 app1-int/svc1 n/a failover | /*
 app1-prd/svc1 n/a failover | /*
 app2-dev/svc1 n/a failover | /*
 app2-int/svc1 n/a failover | /*
 app2-prd/svc1 n/a failover | /*

Services Configuration

We now have 6 empty services.

Although it is not mandatory, we tag services with their environment (DEV/INT/PRD):

$ om 'app[12]-dev/*' set --kw env=DEV
$ om 'app[12]-int/*' set --kw env=INT
$ om 'app[12]-prd/*' set --kw env=PRD

And with their application code:

$ om 'app1-*/*' set --kw app=APP1
$ om 'app2-*/*' set --kw app=APP2

As we want to highlight to maximum segragation, we will setup the services to start their own private docker daemon. This configuration is achieved by specifying an alternate docker’s data folder with the DEFAULT.docker_data_dir keyword.

$ om 'app*-*/*' set --kw docker_data_dir=/srv/{svcpath}/docker

Note

Be sure to use a different docker_data_dir for each service. Here {svcpath} for service svc1 of app1 in prd environment is evaluated as app1-prd/svc1, so the docker data directory for this service is /srv/app1-prd/svc1/docker.

Then, we can add a simple container

$ om 'app*-*/*' set --kw container#0.type=docker --kw container#0.image=ghcr.io/opensvc/pause

Note

Naturally, you can setup more useful services, like multiple docker containers in the same service (Docker Multi Containers), or even combining resources types in a service (like a service modelized with 1 docker container, 2 lxc containers, 3 kvm containers, 4 lvm volumes groups, 5 filesystems, hosted on a netapp filer with snapmirror data replication)

At this point the app1-prd/svc1 service configuration looks like

$ om 'app1-prd/svc1' print config
[DEFAULT]
id = 1ed0b4b5-d576-4e4d-8e46-1e714b5cded5
env = PRD
app = APP1
docker_data_dir = /srv/{svcpath}/docker

[container#0]
type = docker
image = ghcr.io/opensvc/pause

And the services now have a frozen-stopped status

$ svcmon -s 'app[12]-*/*' --sections services
Services                       aubergine nuc-cva
 app1-dev/svc1 down failover | X*
 app1-int/svc1 down failover | X*
 app1-prd/svc1 down failover | X*
 app2-dev/svc1 down failover | X*
 app2-int/svc1 down failover | X*
 app2-prd/svc1 down failover | X*

Service Management

We prefix docker commands with OpenSVC service name so as to be sure that we are in the private docker context, and not in the system’s docker context:

  • OpenSVC will start Docker daemon listening on a private unix socket

  • When prefixing docker client commands with service name, OpenSVC will add the docker -H option, to connect to the correct unix socket

  • We always ensure that logs in <OSVCLOG> and stdout outputs the real docker commands, so it is easy to reproduce and troubleshoot if anything goes wrong.

Start the services

$ om 'app*-*/*' start
aubergine.svc1             service app1-dev/svc1 target state set to started
aubergine.svc1             service app1-int/svc1 target state set to started
aubergine.svc1             service app1-prd/svc1 target state set to started
aubergine.svc1             service app2-dev/svc1 target state set to started
aubergine.svc1             service app2-int/svc1 target state set to started
aubergine.svc1             service app2-prd/svc1 target state set to started

A few seconds later, the services are up and running

$ svcmon -s 'app[12]-*/*' --sections services
Services                     aubergine nuc-cva
 app1-dev/svc1 up failover | O^
 app1-int/svc1 up failover | O^
 app1-prd/svc1 up failover | O^
 app2-dev/svc1 up failover | O^
 app2-int/svc1 up failover | O^
 app2-prd/svc1 up failover | O^

The ghcr.io/opensvc/pause image is installed in all private docker data directories

$ om 'app*-*/*' docker images
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB
REPOSITORY               TAG               IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ghcr.io/opensvc/pause    latest            f9d5de079539        4 years ago         240kB

6 docker environments are running on the same system, with docker data repositories fully segregated.

Service Instance Status

$ om 'app1-prd/svc1' print status
svc1                             up
`- instances
   `- aubergine                  up         idle, started
      `- container#0    ........ up         docker container app1-prd..svc1.container.0@ghcr.io/opensvc/pause

Service Instance Stop

$ om 'app1-prd/svc1' stop --local
aubergine.svc1.container#0   docker -H unix:///opt/opensvc/var/namespaces/app1-prd/services/svc1/docker.sock stop e427aacd0c7571a5e37248b2e40ae90a601fad61f0a71ea9ff0da16bc3b1a6f0
aubergine.svc1.container#0   output:
aubergine.svc1.container#0   e427aacd0c7571a5e37248b2e40ae90a601fad61f0a71ea9ff0da16bc3b1a6f0
aubergine.svc1               no more container handled by docker daemon (pid 10743). shut it down
aubergine.svc1.container#0   wait for down status

Note

OpenSVC shuts down the private docker daemon when it is no longer needed.

Service Instance Start

$ om 'app1-prd/svc1' start --local
aubergine.svc1               starting docker daemon
aubergine.svc1               dockerd -H unix:///opt/opensvc/var/namespaces/app1-prd/services/svc1/docker.sock --data-root /srv/app1-prd/svc1/docker -p /opt/opensvc/var/namespaces/app1-prd/services/svc1/docker.pid --exec-root /opt/opensvc/var/dockerx/1ed0b4b5-d576-4e4d-8e46-1e714b5cded5 --exec-opt native.cgroupdriver=cgroupfs
aubergine.svc1.container#0   docker -H unix:///opt/opensvc/var/namespaces/app1-prd/services/svc1/docker.sock start e427aacd0c7571a5e37248b2e40ae90a601fad61f0a71ea9ff0da16bc3b1a6f0
aubergine.svc1.container#0   output:
aubergine.svc1.container#0   e427aacd0c7571a5e37248b2e40ae90a601fad61f0a71ea9ff0da16bc3b1a6f0
aubergine.svc1.container#0   wait for up status
aubergine.svc1.container#0   wait for container operational
$ om 'app1-prd/svc1' docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                        COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
e427aacd0c75        ghcr.io/opensvc/pause        "/pause"            9 minutes ago       Up 45 seconds                           app1-prd..svc1.container.0

Note

OpenSVC explicitely tag the container with « <namespace>..<svcname>.container.<resource index> », So even in a shared docker daemon, the container names would not clash.

Tenency and Security

If you are concerned about security, like assigning app1 to team1, and app2 to team2, just remember how docker client and daemon are connecting together: a unix socket is used. So you just have to:

  • Create unix groups team1 and team2

  • Change app1 sockets group owner to team1 => chgrp team1 /var/lib/opensvc/namespaces/app1-*/services/svc1/docker.sock

  • Change app2 sockets group owner to team2 => chgrp team2 /var/lib/opensvc/namespaces/app2-*/services/svc1/docker.sock

  • Assign users to the group

As default socket permissions are srw-rw----  root docker, they will be changed to srw-rw----  root team1. This way, only root or team1 members will be able to connect to team1 docker environments.