ServerCtl - Services for Developers

Todo

• Add a --temporary option to start to remove volume after stop
• Rename from serverctl to server
• Implement variables in environment section
• Provide environment, ex. ${SERVER_HOST} for docker host IP
• Add filtering to find command, to seach for tags or name
• App port binding, i.e. phpmyadmin on 9000, phpcacheadmin on 9001
• Make use of a ~/.serverenvs to override envs for instances
• Consider UDP?

Examples

Say you need a Mongodb instance for something. Try this:

$ serverctl start mongo
Started mongo<default>
  Mongo client: 27017
$

What just happened? Well, the start command pulled and started a new container from the latest docker image using sensible defaults from the service registry.

Let's start another one:

$ serverctl start mongo --instance other --portoffset 1
Started mongo<other>
  Mongo client: 27018
$

Check it out!

$ serverctl status
Service   Instance   Ports
mongo     default    27017
          other      27018
$ serverctl stop mongo --all
Stopped mongo<default>
Stopped mongo<other>
$

FAQ

Where is the data stored?

• Data goes in $HOME/.var/serverctl

How can I tell a container to connect to another container?

Static configuration

If you need to preconfigure a connection, use the DOCKER_HOST environment variable. It will only work in the environment section of the service config:

  "environment": {
    "FOO_SERVER": "${DOCKER_HOST}"
  }

From running container

Lookup the IP on your host. On Linux you would do something like:

$ ip addr show docker0
6: docker0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default 
...
    inet 172.17.0.1/16 brd 172.17.255.255 scope global docker0
...