5 ms·

Build Your Own SaaS Using Docker (cs50x project)

86 points by julien421 13y ago

julien421 13y ago
Hello! This website is a proof of concept with a simple Memcached SaaS. It is my final project for cs50x that ended this sunday. Please tell me what you think :) + You can read the how-to on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/julienbarbier42/building-a-saas-using-docker http://www.slideshare.net/julienbarbier42/building-a-saas-us... + You can see the source on GitHub: https://github.com/jbarbier/SaaS_Memcached https://github.com/jbarbier/SaaS_Memcached
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  What has been your experience with docker? I've been meaning to check it out but did not get around to it yet.
  - julien421 13y ago
    Hey! I've been playing with docker for a few weeks now for this project. I started working on my project using LXC & AUFS, but then switched to Docker when it was released. Frankly it made my life much easier because getting LXC and AUFS to do what you want can be pretty hardcore.
    - contingencies 13y ago
      Consider trying LVM2 snapshots instead of AUFS.
- chrisfarms 13y ago
  Fun little project. Well done. Giving a public facing application sudo powers (even limited ones) is a little scarey. If I understood your documentation I believe if I somehow got onto your box I could escalate to root just by editing your iptables scripts. You probably want to ensure www-data (or anyone) cannot write to these files :-)
  - julien421 13y ago
    ouch! thank you! :) let's -w!
    - chrisfarms 13y ago
      Here's a nice comment on some of the dangers of setuid/sudo on shell scripts. The more you know... http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/364/allow-setuid-on-shell-scripts/2910#2910 http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/364/allow-setuid-on-...
      - julien421 13y ago
        Thank you Chris. So a better way would be a compile an executable instead of using a shell script?
        shykes 13y ago
        Or run the webapp itself inside a docker container? :)
- ovi256 13y ago
  Great work Julien, keep it up :)
steeve 13y ago
Nice job, damn docker is nice!
- tachion 13y ago
  I would love to see something like that built on piece of a bit better technology, like FreeBSD Jails. I've tried to use LXC but it seems to be heavily fragmented (works a bit differently on Ubuntu, Debian and other distros), less secure (issues with remountability filesystems of root from inside of the container, and others) and in addition to that FreeBSD has some other neat things, like ZFS and CARP.
  - bcantrill 13y ago
    For whatever it's worth, OS-based virtualization is one of the core tenants of SmartOS[1] -- an illumos derivative that makes heavy use of zones (which were inspired by FreeBSD jails). And it also has ZFS, natch. ;) [1] http://smartos.org http://smartos.org Update/clarification: SmartOS is running tens of thousands of VMs and virtual OS containers in production at Joyent -- and has for years. It is new in nomenclature and exposure, perhaps, but not in terms of core technology or production readiness.
    - tachion 13y ago
      I am familiar with remainings of Solaris, that is Illumos and its technologies, likes zones, dtrace and native ZFS, but the problem is that I personally wouldnt be very hasty to use such young OS in production, and I think I would have even more issues with convincing the management layer to do so, once I would manage to convince myself ;) But, even if that'd happen, that's again just another good stack, like FreeBSD and Jails, and not fancy framework like Docker.
      - chrisfarms 13y ago
        Actaully "zones" in smartos are created/managed/uploaded/download/etc via imgadm and vmadm which are not unlike docker commands at all. http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/How+to+create+a+zone+%28+OS+virtualized+machine+%29+in+SmartOS http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/How+to+create+a+zone+%28...
siliconc0w 13y ago
What would be a good way of reliably farming out docker daemons to worker nodes? Mesos is a bit heavyweight but a docker-mesos framework could be pretty cool for programmatically scaling up or down dockers across worker nodes.
- shykes 13y ago
  Yes, I agree it would be awesome. And the heavyweight problem could be solved by bootstrapping mesos itself from a nicely packaged docker container. Turtles all the way down :)
  - shykes 13y ago
    I created an issue for integrating Docker as a Mesos agent. https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/410 https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/410 If anybody with Mesos experience wants to lend a hand, I would love to give this a try. Say hi on the issue!
instakill 13y ago
Also, I've just submitted some tips for getting the best out of memcached in case anyone is interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5560764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5560764
jmsduran 13y ago
A very informative paper on Docker, will definitely help me out when I start playing around with it. Well done!

86 points by julien421 13y ago

Hello! This website is a proof of concept with a simple Memcached SaaS. It is my final project for cs50x that ended this sunday. Please tell me what you think :) + You can read the how-to on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/julienbarbier42/building-a-saas-using-docker http://www.slideshare.net/julienbarbier42/building-a-saas-us... + You can see the source on GitHub: https://github.com/jbarbier/SaaS_Memcached https://github.com/jbarbier/SaaS_Memcached

adamnemecek 13y ago
What has been your experience with docker? I've been meaning to check it out but did not get around to it yet.
- julien421 13y ago
  Hey! I've been playing with docker for a few weeks now for this project. I started working on my project using LXC & AUFS, but then switched to Docker when it was released. Frankly it made my life much easier because getting LXC and AUFS to do what you want can be pretty hardcore.
  - contingencies 13y ago
    Consider trying LVM2 snapshots instead of AUFS.
chrisfarms 13y ago
Fun little project. Well done. Giving a public facing application sudo powers (even limited ones) is a little scarey. If I understood your documentation I believe if I somehow got onto your box I could escalate to root just by editing your iptables scripts. You probably want to ensure www-data (or anyone) cannot write to these files :-)
- julien421 13y ago
  ouch! thank you! :) let's -w!
  - chrisfarms 13y ago
    Here's a nice comment on some of the dangers of setuid/sudo on shell scripts. The more you know... http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/364/allow-setuid-on-shell-scripts/2910#2910 http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/364/allow-setuid-on-...
    - julien421 13y ago
      Thank you Chris. So a better way would be a compile an executable instead of using a shell script?
      - shykes 13y ago
        Or run the webapp itself inside a docker container? :)
ovi256 13y ago
Great work Julien, keep it up :)

steeve 13y ago

Nice job, damn docker is nice!

tachion 13y ago
I would love to see something like that built on piece of a bit better technology, like FreeBSD Jails. I've tried to use LXC but it seems to be heavily fragmented (works a bit differently on Ubuntu, Debian and other distros), less secure (issues with remountability filesystems of root from inside of the container, and others) and in addition to that FreeBSD has some other neat things, like ZFS and CARP.
- bcantrill 13y ago
  For whatever it's worth, OS-based virtualization is one of the core tenants of SmartOS[1] -- an illumos derivative that makes heavy use of zones (which were inspired by FreeBSD jails). And it also has ZFS, natch. ;) [1] http://smartos.org http://smartos.org Update/clarification: SmartOS is running tens of thousands of VMs and virtual OS containers in production at Joyent -- and has for years. It is new in nomenclature and exposure, perhaps, but not in terms of core technology or production readiness.
  - tachion 13y ago
    I am familiar with remainings of Solaris, that is Illumos and its technologies, likes zones, dtrace and native ZFS, but the problem is that I personally wouldnt be very hasty to use such young OS in production, and I think I would have even more issues with convincing the management layer to do so, once I would manage to convince myself ;) But, even if that'd happen, that's again just another good stack, like FreeBSD and Jails, and not fancy framework like Docker.
    - chrisfarms 13y ago
      Actaully "zones" in smartos are created/managed/uploaded/download/etc via imgadm and vmadm which are not unlike docker commands at all. http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/How+to+create+a+zone+%28+OS+virtualized+machine+%29+in+SmartOS http://wiki.smartos.org/display/DOC/How+to+create+a+zone+%28...

siliconc0w 13y ago

What would be a good way of reliably farming out docker daemons to worker nodes? Mesos is a bit heavyweight but a docker-mesos framework could be pretty cool for programmatically scaling up or down dockers across worker nodes.

shykes 13y ago
Yes, I agree it would be awesome. And the heavyweight problem could be solved by bootstrapping mesos itself from a nicely packaged docker container. Turtles all the way down :)
- shykes 13y ago
  I created an issue for integrating Docker as a Mesos agent. https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/410 https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/issues/410 If anybody with Mesos experience wants to lend a hand, I would love to give this a try. Say hi on the issue!

instakill 13y ago

Also, I've just submitted some tips for getting the best out of memcached in case anyone is interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5560764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5560764

jmsduran 13y ago

A very informative paper on Docker, will definitely help me out when I start playing around with it. Well done!