docker-stack

A management tool for Docker based multi-image/container deployments. Like docker-compose, but allows each service to specify its own docker-machine. Unlike docker-compose in that it allows you to run docker-compose commands as well as docker commands, and even custom defined commands.

Usage

npm install -g docker-stack

docker-stack [-d,--debug] [-n] [--env,-e VAR=VALUE ...] [-m,--machine docker-machine] [-f,--file docker-stack.yml] \
  COMMAND [options] [CONTAINER|ALL] [args]

Keeping in mind that each service in the docker-stack.yml file can belong to its own unique docker machine, the following examples give you an idea of what it can do:

docker-stack build
docker-stack up -d
docker-stack exec -it portal bash
docker-stack log --tail=50 -f portal
docker-stack restart database
docker-stack mycommand -b v1.2 ALL

Config File

docker-stack uses a super set of the docker-compose config file. In fact, you'll probably start with an existing docker-compose file and add to it. A typical section in a docker compose file might look like this:

portal:
  build: .
  dockerfile: Dockerfile.portal
  container_name: portal
  restart: always
  ports:
    - "80:3000"

docker-stack looks for three additional properties:

portal:
  build: .
  dockerfile: Dockerfile.portal
  container_name: portal
  restart: always
  ports:
    - "80:3000"
  container-type: application
  docker-machine: staging-portal
  commands:
    update: run.sh update

The container-type tells docker-stack what kind of services this is. It can be one of "application", "service" or "data". When you run docker-stack with a command to operate on all sections, its really only operates on the sections where container-type is equal to "application".

The docker-machine tells docker-stack which machine this container runs one.

And commands lists a set of custom commands you can run on this container.

What makes docker-stack useful is that, when doing a docker-compose command (like build or up), docker-stack will create temporary docker compose files based on the "docker-machine" setting for the services, execute a "docker-machine env" and then each docker-compose file. When doing docker commands (exec, logs, etc) docker-stack will do the required "docker-machine env" for you.

docker-stack will also look for a special section in the docker-stack.yml file, called "stack" that looks like this:

stack:
  name: local
  environment:
    NODE_ENV: local
  docker-machine: local-bi
  docker-machine-env: docker-machine env
  commands:
    roll: forever restartall
    update: run.sh update

The "name" is passed as the -p option to docker-compose, which affects the name of the images docker-compose builds (known as the project name). The environment is exposed on process.env before commands are run. The "docker-machine" if specified here becomes the default for each section, unless the section overrides it. The "docker-machine-env" is the command to run to get the machine environment (it defaults to "docker-machine env"). And the "commands" section become global commands that each container will understand.