Developing in Linux Containers¶
In this article we will show, how you can make use of Linux Containers (LXC) in distributed and heterogeneous development cycles (TL;DR; jump to the Summary).
Motivation¶
Usually in our development cycle, we edit the sources and run some test and/or
builds by using make
[ref] before we commit. This cycle
is simple and perfect but might fail in some aspects we should not overlook.
The environment in which we run all our development processes matters!
The Makefile and the Python environment (make install) encapsulate a lot for us, but they do not have access to all prerequisites. For example, there may have dependencies on packages that are installed on the developer’s desktop, but usually are not preinstalled on a server or client system. Another example is; settings have been made to the software on developer’s desktop that would never be set on a production system.
Linux Containers are isolate environments and not to mix up all the prerequisites from various projects on developer’s desktop is always a good choice.
The scripts from DevOps tooling box can divide in those to install and maintain software:
and the script utils/lxc.sh, with we can scale our installation, maintenance or even development tasks over a stack of isolated containers / what we call the:
SearXNG LXC suite
Hint
If you see any problems with the internet connectivity of your containers read section Internet Connectivity & Docker.
Gentlemen, start your engines!¶
Before you can start with containers, you need to install and initiate LXD once:
$ snap install lxd
$ lxd init --auto
And you need to clone from origin or if you have your own fork, clone from your fork:
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng.git searxng
$ cd searxng
The SearXNG suite consists of several images, see export
LXC_SUITE=(...
near by git://utils/lxc-searxng.env#L19. For this blog post
we exercise on a archlinux image. The container of this image is named
searxng-archlinux
. Lets build the container, but be sure that this container
does not already exists, so first lets remove possible old one:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh remove searxng-archlinux
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh build searxng-archlinux
In this container we install all services including searx, morty & filtron in once:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh install suite searxng-archlinux
To proxy HTTP from filtron and morty in the container to the outside of the container, install nginx into the container. Once for the bot blocker filtron:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
./utils/filtron.sh nginx install
...
INFO: got 429 from http://10.174.184.156/searx
and once for the content sanitizer (content proxy morty):
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
./utils/morty.sh nginx install
...
INFO: got 200 from http://10.174.184.156/morty/
On your system, the IP of your searxng-archlinux
container differs from
http://10.174.184.156/searx, just open the URL reported in your installation
protocol in your WEB browser from the desktop to test the instance from outside
of the container.
In such a earXNG suite admins can maintain and access the debug log of the different services quite easy.
In containers, work as usual¶
Usually you open a root-bash using sudo -H bash
. In case of LXC containers
open the root-bash in the container using ./utils/lxc.sh cmd
searxng-archlinux
:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux bash
INFO: [searxng-archlinux] bash
[root@searxng-archlinux searx]# pwd
/share/searxng
The prompt [root@searxng-archlinux ...]
signals, that you are the root user in
the searxng-container. To debug the running SearXNG instance use:
$ ./utils/searx.sh inspect service
...
use [CTRL-C] to stop monitoring the log
...
Back in the browser on your desktop open the service http://10.174.184.156/searx
and run your application tests while the debug log is shown in the terminal from
above. You can stop monitoring using CTRL-C
, this also disables the “debug
option” in SearXNG’s settings file and restarts the SearXNG uwsgi application.
To debug services from filtron and morty analogous use:
Another point we have to notice is that the service (SearXNG runs under dedicated system user account with the same name (compare Create user). To get a shell from these accounts, simply call:
$ ./utils/searxng.sh instance cmd bash
To get in touch, open a shell from the service user (searxng@searxng-archlinux):
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux ./utils/searxng.sh instance cmd bash
INFO: [searxng-archlinux] ./utils/searxng.sh instance cmd bash
[searxng@searxng-archlinux ~]$
The prompt [searxng@searxng-archlinux]
signals that you are logged in as system
user searx
in the searxng-archlinux
container and the python virtualenv
(searxng-pyenv)
environment is activated.
(searxng-pyenv) [searxng@searxng-archlinux ~]$ pwd
/usr/local/searxng
Wrap production into developer suite¶
In this section we will see how to change the “Fully functional SearXNG suite” from a LXC container (which is quite ready for production) into a developer suite. For this, we have to keep an eye on the Step by step installation:
SearXNG setup in:
/etc/searxng/settings.yml
SearXNG user’s home:
/usr/local/searxng
virtualenv in:
/usr/local/searxng/searxng-pyenv
SearXNG software in:
/usr/local/searxng/searxng-src
With the use of the utils/searxng.sh the SearXNG service was installed as
uWSGI application. To maintain this service, we can use
systemctl
(compare uWSGI maintenance).
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
systemctl stop uwsgi@searxng
With the command above, we stopped the SearXNG uWSGI-App in the archlinux container.
The uWSGI-App for the archlinux dsitros is configured in
git://utils/templates/etc/uwsgi/apps-archlinux/searxng.ini, from where at
least you should attend the settings of uid
, chdir
, env
and
http
:
env = SEARXNG_SETTINGS_PATH=/etc/searxng/settings.yml
http = 127.0.0.1:8888
chdir = /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src/searx
virtualenv = /usr/local/searxng/searxng-pyenv
pythonpath = /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src
If you have read the “Good to know section” you remember, that
each container shares the root folder of the repository and the command
utils/lxc.sh cmd
handles relative path names transparent. To wrap the
SearXNG installation into a developer one, we simple have to create a smylink to
the transparent reposetory from the desktop. Now lets replace the
repository at searxng-src
in the container with the working tree from outside
of the container:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
mv /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src.old
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
ln -s /share/searx/ /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src
Now we can develop as usual in the working tree of our desktop system. Every time the software was changed, you have to restart the SearXNG service (in the container):
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
systemctl restart uwsgi@searx
Remember: In containers, work as usual .. here are just some examples from my daily usage:
To inspect the SearXNG instance (already described above):
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
./utils/searx.sh inspect service
Run Makefile, e.g. to test inside the container:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
make test
To install all prerequisites needed for a Buildhosts:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
./utils/searxng.sh install buildhost
To build the docs on a buildhost Buildhosts:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh cmd searxng-archlinux \
make docs.html
Summary¶
We build up a fully functional SearXNG suite in a archlinux container:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh install suite searxng-archlinux
To access HTTP from the desktop we installed nginx for the services inside the container:
$ ./utils/filtron.sh nginx install
$ ./utils/morty.sh nginx install
To wrap the suite into a developer one, we created a symbolic link to the repository which is shared transparent from the desktop’s file system into the container :
$ mv /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src.old
$ ln -s /share/searx/ /usr/local/searxng/searxng-src
$ systemctl restart uwsgi@searx
To get information about the searxNG suite in the archlinux container we can use:
$ sudo -H ./utils/lxc.sh show suite searxng-archlinux
...
[searxng-archlinux] INFO: (eth0) filtron: http://10.174.184.156:4004/ http://10.174.184.156/searx
[searxng-archlinux] INFO: (eth0) morty: http://10.174.184.156:3000/
[searxng-archlinux] INFO: (eth0) docs.live: http://10.174.184.156:8080/
[searxng-archlinux] INFO: (eth0) IPv6: http://[fd42:573b:e0b3:e97e:216:3eff:fea5:9b65]
...