Week 9, 10 & 11 - CircuitVerse@GSOC'23

Tanmoy SarkarTanmoy Sarkar
7 min read

This blog is coming after a long time [almost 3 weeks].

Throughout this week, the main tasks involved were -

  • Update the docker setup to make it more convenient

  • Test the docker setup in all OS [Linux, Mac, Windows]

  • Rewrite Documentation

Revamp Docker Setup

The main problems with the current setup are -

  1. In the docker file, it copies all the source code and installs dependencies

  2. The image and process inside the container run as root user

  3. For this reason, whenever some dependencies or codebase changes the docker image rebuild and which takes lots of time

  4. As the process runs as a root user, some file changes from the container give permission errors in a code editor.

  5. As we install all the dependencies at the time of building the image, there is no possibility to cache the dependencies

Solution -

The solution is inspired by the GitHub Codespaces working principle.

👀 How do codespaces work?

  1. It has a Dockerfile of the application

  2. It starts the container with a sleep infinity to prevent it from terminating after the start

  3. Then, it uses attach or exec to attach the container

  4. Then, it runs a setup.sh to install all dependencies and prepare the4 environment

  5. Then it runs boot.sh to start the application

🏄 Let's do the same for CircuitVerse project

  1. Prepare the Dockerfile. This will only contain the ruby and nodejs environment. As well as it will have a non-root user with the same user id and group id of the host.

    We will provide host's group id and user id by build arguments

     FROM ruby:3.2.1

 # Args
 ARG NON_ROOT_USER_ID
 ARG NON_ROOT_GROUP_ID
 ARG NON_ROOT_USERNAME
 ARG NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME
 ARG OPERATING_SYSTEM

 # Check mandatory args
 RUN test -n "$NON_ROOT_USER_ID"
 RUN test -n "$NON_ROOT_GROUP_ID"
 RUN test -n "$OPERATING_SYSTEM"
 RUN test -n "$NON_ROOT_USERNAME"
 RUN test -n "$NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME"

 # Create app directory
 RUN mkdir /circuitverse
 # Create non-root user directory
 RUN mkdir /home/${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}
 # Create non-root vendor directory
 RUN mkdir /home/vendor
 RUN mkdir /home/vendor/bundle
 # set up workdir
 WORKDIR /circuitverse

 # Set shell to bash
 SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-c"]

 # install dependencies
 RUN apt-get update -qq && \
  apt-get install -y imagemagick shared-mime-info libvips sudo make cmake netcat libnotify-dev git chromium-driver chromium --fix-missing && apt-get clean

 # Setup nodejs and yarn
 RUN curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | bash \
  && apt-get update && apt-get install -y nodejs && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* \
  && curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | apt-key add - \
  && echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list \
  && apt-get update && apt-get install -y yarn && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

 # If OPERATING_SYSTEM is Linux, create non-root user
 RUN if [[ "$OPERATING_SYSTEM" == "linux" ]]; then \
     # create non-root user with same uid:gid as host non-root user
     groupadd -g ${NON_ROOT_GROUP_ID} -r ${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} && useradd -u ${NON_ROOT_USER_ID} -r -g ${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME} \
     && chown -R ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}:${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} /circuitverse \
     && chown -R ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}:${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} /home/${NON_ROOT_USERNAME} \
     && chown -R ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}:${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} /home/vendor \
     && chown -R ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}:${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME} /home/vendor/bundle \
     # Provide sudo permissions to non-root user
     && adduser ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME} sudo \
     && echo '%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' >> /etc/sudoers ;\
 fi

 # Switch to non-root user
 USER ${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}

    For macOS and windows we don't need non-root users because the volume mounting is worked as shared storage. So the permission error will not come

  2. Next, we create a setup.sh which will install dependencies and migrate the database

     # !/bin/sh

 # Remove tmp folder
 rm -rf /circuitverse/tmp

 # Install ruby dependencies
 gem install bundler
 bundle config set --local without "production"
 bundle config set --local path "/home/vendor/bundle"
 bundle install
 # Install node dependencies
 yarn
 # Setup database
 bundle exec rails db:create
 bundle exec rails db:schema:load
 bundle exec rails db:migrate
 bundle exec rails db:seed
 # generate key-pair for jwt-auth
 # if private.pem and public.pem does not exists
 if [ ! -f "/circuitverse/config/private.pem" ] && [ ! -f "/circuitverse/config/public.pem" ]; then
   openssl genrsa -out /circuitverse/config/private.pem 2048
   openssl rsa -in /circuitverse/config/private.pem -outform PEM -pubout -out /circuitverse/config/public.pem
 fi

  3. Then we create a boot.sh to initiate setup.sh and then start the server

     #!/bin/bash

 # Delete server.pid if it exists
 rm -f /circuitverse/tmp/pids/server.pid 2>&1

 # Run setup
 echo "Setup project"
 ./bin/docker/setup

 if [[ "$OPERATING_SYSTEM" == "linux" || "$OPERATING_SYSTEM" == "mac" ]]; then
   if [ ! -d "${HOST_CURRENT_DIRECTORY%/*}" ]; then
     sudo mkdir -p "${HOST_CURRENT_DIRECTORY%/*}"
   fi
   # Setup symbolic link for solargraph
   if [ ! -L "$HOST_CURRENT_DIRECTORY" ]; then
     sudo ln -s -T /circuitverse "$HOST_CURRENT_DIRECTORY"
   fi
   # Start solargraph server in background
   bundle exec solargraph socket --host="0.0.0.0" --port=3002 &> /dev/null &
 fi

 # Start server
 ./bin/dev

 # Start bash if previous command exits
 /bin/bash

  4. Now, we need to prepare the docker-compose.yml. As you can see still now we haven't copied the source code in the image or anywhere.

    We will mount the codebase to the container at /circuitverse location to make it easy to edit files and keep all files in sync

     ....
   web:
     build:
       context: .
       dockerfile: Dockerfile
       args:
         - NON_ROOT_USER_ID=${CURRENT_UID}
         - NON_ROOT_GROUP_ID=${CURRENT_GID}
         - OPERATING_SYSTEM=${OPERATING_SYSTEM}
         - NON_ROOT_USERNAME=${NON_ROOT_USERNAME}
         - NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME=${NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME}
     command: sleep infinity
     volumes:
       - .:/circuitverse:rw
       - ./config/database.docker.yml:/circuitverse/config/database.yml:rw
       - ruby_bundle:/home/vendor/bundle:rw
     cap_add:
       - SYS_ADMIN
     ports:
       - "3000:3000"
       - "3001:3001"
       - "3002:3002"
       - "3035:3035"
       - "3036:3036"
     depends_on:
       - db
       - redis
     environment:
       REDIS_URL: "redis://redis:6379/0"
       CIRCUITVERSE_USE_SOLR: "false"
       DOCKER_ENVIRONMENT: "true"
       NODE_ENV: "development"
       HOST_CURRENT_DIRECTORY: $PWD
       OPERATING_SYSTEM: $OPERATING_SYSTEM
 ....

  5. Everything is ready. But there is an issue, we can't run this using docker-compose up. We need to set the NON_ROOT_USER_ID NON_ROOT_GROUP_ID OPERATING_SYSTEM environment variables. Also, need to start the server by attaching to it. So write a script for that

     #!/bin/bash

 # Detect operating system [linux, macos] with uname
 DETECTED_OS=$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')

 # If operating system is linux
 if [ "$DETECTED_OS" = "linux" ]; then
   # Set environment variables temporary
   export CURRENT_GID=$(id -g)
   export CURRENT_UID=$(id -u)
   export NON_ROOT_USERNAME="user"
   export NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME="user"
   export OPERATING_SYSTEM="linux"
   # Check if docker and docker compose are installed
   if ! command -v docker &>/dev/null; then
     echo "Docker is not installed. Install docker : https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/"
     exit 0
   fi
   # Check if rootless docker is available
   if docker ps &>/dev/null; then
     # Run docker-compose up
     docker compose up -d --build
     # Run docker-compose exec web bash
     docker compose exec web bin/docker/boot
     # Run docker-compose down
     docker compose down
   else
     # Run docker-compose up as root user
     sudo docker compose up -d --build
     # Run docker-compose exec web bash as root user
     sudo docker compose exec web bin/docker/boot
     # Run docker-compose down as root user
     sudo docker compose down
   fi
 fi

 # If operating system is macos
 if [ "$DETECTED_OS" = "darwin" ]; then
   # Set environment variables temporary
   export CURRENT_GID="0"
   export CURRENT_UID="0"
   export NON_ROOT_USERNAME="root"
   export NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME="root"
   export OPERATING_SYSTEM="mac"

   # Check if docker and docker compose are installed
   if ! command -v docker &>/dev/null; then
     echo "Docker is not installed. Install docker : https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/"
     exit 0
   fi

   # Run docker-compose up
   docker compose up -d --build
   # Run docker-compose exec web bash
   docker compose exec web bin/docker/boot
   # Run docker-compose down
   docker compose down
 fi

    This one script is responsible to fetch user id and group id and set temporary environment variables.

    This will start the container and then run bin/docker/boot inside the container. And after the container got exited, it run docker compose down to stop other containers as well.

  6. 💁 That's all.

Test docker setup

We have tested this docker setup in

  • Windows [both Hyper-V and WSL2]

  • Linux

  • MacOS

It works on all os without any issues.

For Windows, we have written a PowerShell script to support it as well.

# Set environment variables
$env:NON_ROOT_USERNAME = "root";
$env:NON_ROOT_GROUPNAME = "root";
$env:OPERATING_SYSTEM = "windows";
$env:PWD = (Get-Location).Path;
$env:CURRENT_UID = "0";
$env:CURRENT_GID = "0";

# Check if docker is available
if (Get-Command -Name "docker" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
    # Run docker-compose up
    docker compose up -d --build
    # Run docker-compose exec to boot the image
    docker compose exec web bin/docker/boot
    # Run docker-compose down
    docker compose down
}
else {
    Write-Output "Docker is not available. Follow this documentation to install docker: https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/"
}

You can get more details in this PR - https://github.com/CircuitVerse/CircuitVerse/pull/3913/

Rewrite Documentation

Many changes were made to the project for improving the development experience. So it's very important to update the documentation as well.

We have written the documentation for Remote Development Platforms, as well as separate documentation for each operating system for setting up a docker-based environment + local installation.

Additionally, working on the reviewed PRs. Making some changes on the PR to make it ready to merge.

That's all for this blog. If you liked this subscribe to the newsletter.

🎉 Finally, my project SwiftWave has been published on GitHub.

SwiftWave is a self-hosted lightweight PaaS solution to deploy and manage your applications on any VPS without any hassle

GitHub Link - https://github.com/swiftwave-org/swiftwave

If you like the initiative, star⭐ the project on GitHub.

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Written by

Tanmoy Sarkar
Tanmoy Sarkar

I am exploring the world of technology and playing with them. Like a kid, breaking them and modiy them.