02 juillet 2014

maven/docker jungle

Docker office in San Francisco looks like a Jungle. I'm not sure that's the sole reason to explain profusion of maven-docker plugins in the wild.


Just searching github (I assume nobody uses google code anymore) gives a dozen candidates, some of them being just empty repositories.

So, here is a quick exploration for available plugins. All of them let you run and stop containers for integration test phase.

Alex Collins (https://github.com/alexec/docker-maven-plugin com.alexecollins.docker). 
Let you build a set of containers as part of a maven build (overriding the docker "build" terminology to follow maven "package" one). Uses a proprietary yaml descriptor, and rely on a custom fork (sic) docker-java client library, that doesn't support unix socket (default docker daemon protocol on localhost). 

Wouter Dance (https://github.com/wouterd/docker-maven-plugin net.wouterdanes.docker)
Comparable to Alex plugin but based on it's own REST client library to talk with docker daemon. So require you to choose between local or remote docker - same issue with unix socket.

Eduardo de Vera Toquero (https://github.com/etux/docker-maven-plugin es.devera.maven.plugins)
Just a maven wrapper to Docker commands

Can create a data container with built artifacts, as define by a (mostly standard) maven assembly descriptor, and then mounted into containers. Uses a custom REST client - still no support for unix socket.

Bilgin Ibryam (https://github.com/bibryam/docker-maven-plugin com.ofbizian)
A wrapper to start and stop existing docker images as part of a maven build. No support for unix socket.

Let you add artifact built by maven to an existing base image, and set entrypoint. Typical use-case is you have a generic base image with your app-server runtime, just need to add the application WAR. Can also use a full Dockerfile. Relies on spotify docker client (not sure about unix socket support, seems not implemented).

Vojtěch Juránek is also working on some plugin, but not released yet.

Imaginate Labs (https://github.com/imaginatelabs/docker-maven-plugin) develop an alpha-stage docker/vagrant plugin. Not sure I like such a combination of a VM manager + Docker within a build.


Most of those plugin are just wrappers to run docker, could just be replaced with maven-exec plugin to run equivalent docker commands, and without restriction on docker daemon unix socket. I don't think it's "cleaner" to write such a docker execution as xml in a pom versus just get the right tool executed as-is. This just introduce expectation to get the same result, but actual differences, like lack of unix socket support and/or docker API mismatch.
So, as a resume, none of those plugins make me feel I need one to use docker within my maven project. Spotify and RHuss plugins are the sole one to hack the docker build process and provide some added value: They both try to concile an actual maven packaging workflow with a docker image build.

Make me also think jenkins way to encourage people to contribute on same github organization and contribute vs re-create existing plugin on their own is a good model. Codehaus Mojo was initially designed for this purpose but clearly isn't attractive/flexible enough to embrace developer enthusiasm.

1 commentaires:

Roland Huss a dit…

Thanks for your detailed analysis, I'm also quite puzzled not that there are more than one docker-maven-plugin (four or five started simultaneously), but that this number is still increasing ;-)

For the note: I (rhuss) added a similar behaviour as the Spotify plugin to merge artifacts, dependencies and files specified via an assembly descriptor into the base image (mergeData=true).

Additionally there is now a "docker:push" goal for getting data container (merged or not) into registry. Configuration of credentials can be done in several ways, including the possibility to put the credentials into a declaration in ~/.m2/settings.xml (with support for password encryption).

If you any additional ideas, how a maven plugin should look like in order to provide some value add, feel free to open issue or contribute PRs.

BTW, is Unix socket support really worth the effort ? Unix sockets will probably never work on OS X setups (with boot2docker and/or vagrant), is difficult to implement from Java and IMO doesn't add much value. But certainly I can be wrong here ;-)