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Tales of a Part-Time Sysadmin: Dogfooding Docker to Test Docker

29 points by manualwise 11y ago

spotman 11y ago
So, basically, the continuous integration system that the docker team uses to do continuous integration, makes heavy use of docker. This is not meant to sound terse, but that is not that interesting. How about writing about how you setup this CI platform? You mention you use jenkins, and mention that jenkins runs using the official docker image for jenkins, but what about all your other hosts and configuration management? You mention consul, but don't go into much detail about it. Surely there is a lot of moving parts here, I would be interested in knowing all the work and thought that went into setting it up.
- mhurron 11y ago
  I too would like to see the details of the whole thing, including using docker in your docker so you can integrate while you integrate as appropriate.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Isn't it cool that they follow their own advice ? Many times shops will advocate for an idea even though they do it differently internally.
- twotwotwo 11y ago
  I enjoyed it! If you only want extremely detailed walkthroughs, fine, but people don't have to write their personal blog posts to cater to those tastes, and other folks don't have to upvote according to those tastes. She has written some other fun posts about her various crazy setups--she runs Debian on her Mac and walked folks through how to do that: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/linux-on-mac/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/linux-on-mac/ and almost never installs packages on the host (rather than in containers)--to that end she Dockerized Chrome, Spotify, and a 3D Steam game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsLZz8cZCzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsLZz8cZCzc https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desk... (Maybe I have a soft spot for unusual setups. I worked from a netbook for six months, and currently bemuse my coworkers by using an ARM Chromebook as my main machine and doing most of my coding in a WordStar-inspired text editor named joe.)
  - pronoiac 11y ago
    Not only that, I can control how much CPU and Memory the app uses. Yes, the cpu/memory hungry Chrome is now perfectly contained! Ooh, I like the sound of this!
    - fapjacks 11y ago
      This was one of the first things I ever did with Docker, and now essentially everything I ever run is inside a container. I believe this kind of process granularity and segregation is going to become a lot more common than just a couple of docker nerds doing it for fun and profit. It makes perfect sense, just that it's not yet automated, which excludes a lot of people who are attracted to this idea.
geoelectric 11y ago
If I understand correctly, they're using pre-release Docker in their primary test infrastructure as well as just being the system under test. I'd be curious what this does to the robustness of the test system. When I was at VMware, we had analogous testing to do with ESX. But there, I was pretty careful to differentiate between "infrastructure" and "system under test," and used known-good versions on infrastructure. The reasoning was that the test automation was mission-critical and, while dogfooding was good, the cost of the infrastructure going down would have been too high to take the chance and we probably wouldn't have had the luxury of time to debug against it anyway.

29 points by manualwise 11y ago

So, basically, the continuous integration system that the docker team uses to do continuous integration, makes heavy use of docker. This is not meant to sound terse, but that is not that interesting. How about writing about how you setup this CI platform? You mention you use jenkins, and mention that jenkins runs using the official docker image for jenkins, but what about all your other hosts and configuration management? You mention consul, but don't go into much detail about it. Surely there is a lot of moving parts here, I would be interested in knowing all the work and thought that went into setting it up.

mhurron 11y ago
I too would like to see the details of the whole thing, including using docker in your docker so you can integrate while you integrate as appropriate.
agumonkey 11y ago
Isn't it cool that they follow their own advice ? Many times shops will advocate for an idea even though they do it differently internally.
twotwotwo 11y ago
I enjoyed it! If you only want extremely detailed walkthroughs, fine, but people don't have to write their personal blog posts to cater to those tastes, and other folks don't have to upvote according to those tastes. She has written some other fun posts about her various crazy setups--she runs Debian on her Mac and walked folks through how to do that: https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/linux-on-mac/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/linux-on-mac/ and almost never installs packages on the host (rather than in containers)--to that end she Dockerized Chrome, Spotify, and a 3D Steam game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsLZz8cZCzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsLZz8cZCzc https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desktop/ https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/docker-containers-on-the-desk... (Maybe I have a soft spot for unusual setups. I worked from a netbook for six months, and currently bemuse my coworkers by using an ARM Chromebook as my main machine and doing most of my coding in a WordStar-inspired text editor named joe.)
- pronoiac 11y ago
  Not only that, I can control how much CPU and Memory the app uses. Yes, the cpu/memory hungry Chrome is now perfectly contained! Ooh, I like the sound of this!
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    This was one of the first things I ever did with Docker, and now essentially everything I ever run is inside a container. I believe this kind of process granularity and segregation is going to become a lot more common than just a couple of docker nerds doing it for fun and profit. It makes perfect sense, just that it's not yet automated, which excludes a lot of people who are attracted to this idea.

geoelectric 11y ago

If I understand correctly, they're using pre-release Docker in their primary test infrastructure as well as just being the system under test. I'd be curious what this does to the robustness of the test system. When I was at VMware, we had analogous testing to do with ESX. But there, I was pretty careful to differentiate between "infrastructure" and "system under test," and used known-good versions on infrastructure. The reasoning was that the test automation was mission-critical and, while dogfooding was good, the cost of the infrastructure going down would have been too high to take the chance and we probably wouldn't have had the luxury of time to debug against it anyway.