vSphere Integrated Containers Part IV: docker run a Container-VM

2018-07-13 904 words 5 minutes

Contents

Instantiate a nginx cVM

Now that we´ve become more familiar with the Virtual Container Host, it´s time to run our first Container-VM on it. The following example will show you how easy it is to instantiate an Nginx Web Server container-image.

We first pull down the image from Docker Hub to our Datastore by using docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls pull vmwarecna/nginx.

You´ll see some running tasks in your vCenter taskbar under Recent Tasks. Validate the downloaded image with docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls images.

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docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls images

REPOSITORY                TAG               IMAGE ID              CREATED                SIZE
vmwarecna/nginx           latest            2492b68e515c          3 years ago            93.5MB

Alright! This was successful and by runnig the following command, the VIC Engine will deploy a Nginx Container-VM with 512MB vRAM (-m) which will listen to port (-p) 8080.

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docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls run --name nginx1 -m 512M -d -p 8080:80 vmwarecna/nginx

Let´s check if our container is up and running. First in vCenter:

/img/posts/201807_vic_getting_started/CapturFiles-20180831_125134.jpg

…and second via command line:

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docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls ps -a

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docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls ps -a

CONTAINER ID    IMAGE    COMMAND                   CREATED   STATUS          PORTS        NAMES
1ce3a5a70099    nginx    "nginx -g daemon off;"    Up 1m     192.168.100.2:8080->80/tcp   nginx1

Just like any other Container Host, virtual or physical, you´ll reach your container via the Container Host IP-Address and port. I intended to show the same in my example before we configure a dedicated Container Network afterwards. We can reach the Nginx Web Server site via the VCH IP-Address and port 8080.

/img/posts/201807_vic_getting_started/CapturFiles-20180617_112351.jpg

If you´re wondering why I always used -H vch-ip-address --tls in my example that´s because I´ve not “exported” my VCH through it´s IP-Address and port yet. We can do this by the following:

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export DOCKER_HOST=192.168.100.222:2376

After we´ve exported the host, we can go the classical way and use commands like: docker pull, docker images, docker ps -a etc. To get a complete list of all available and supported docker commands you´ve to go here:

VIC - Supported Docker Commands

A dedicated Network for Conatiners

I´ve mentioned in the Networking-Part of this post, that I´ll come back to the point where I´ll configure a Container Network to an existing VCH. As a prerequisite we have to create a new Distributed Port Group on our vDistributed Switch and ensure that all other network related configuration (e.g. VLAN) are set. I´ve gave my new dPG the name vic-container.

As also mentioned we´ll make use of the vic-machine configure option to add the new network to our VCH. Before we begin, we need to know the internal ID of it. Use vic-machine inspect with the virtual machine name of your VCH:

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./vic-machine-darwin inspect \
--target lab-vcsa67-001.lab.jarvis.local/Datacenter-South \
--user adm.jarvis@LAB.JARVIS.LOCAL \
--thumbprint 4F:D3:9B:50:00:31:D9:84:9D:DA:CF:57:21:D6:0D:11:89:78:97:26 \
--name vch02

The output will show us the internal ID which is in my case vm-212:

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INFO[0008] ### Inspecting VCH ####
INFO[0008] Validating target
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] VCH ID: VirtualMachine:vm-212
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] Installer version: v1.4.0-18893-6c385b0
INFO[0009] VCH version: v1.4.0-18893-6c385b0
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] VCH upgrade status:
INFO[0009] Installer has same version as VCH
INFO[0009] No upgrade available with this installer version
WARN[0009] Unable to identify address acceptable to host certificate, using assigned client IP as host address.
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] VCH Admin Portal:
INFO[0009] https://192.168.100.222:2378
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] Published ports can be reached at:
INFO[0009] 192.168.100.222
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] Docker environment variables:
INFO[0009] DOCKER_HOST=192.168.100.222:2376
INFO[0009]
INFO[0009] Connect to docker:
INFO[0009] docker -H 192.168.100.222:2376 --tls info
INFO[0009] Completed successfully

Okay, now that we have the ID we can continue with adding the new container network by using vic-machine configure:

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./vic-machine-darwin configure \
--target lab-vcsa67-001.lab.jarvis.local/Datacenter-South \
--user adm.jarvis@lab.jarvis.local \
--thumbprint 4F:D3:9B:50:00:31:D9:84:9D:DA:CF:57:21:D6:0D:11:89:78:97:26 \
--id vm-212 \
--container-network vic-container:vic-container-network \
--container-network-gateway vic-container:192.168.100.1/24 \
--container-network-ip-range vic-container:192.168.100.0/24 \
--container-network-dns vic-container:192.168.100.80 \
--timeout 5m

I´ve used the option --timeout 5m because I ran in a timeout without it. I´m pretty sure this was performance related to my nested environment. But anyway! The configuration was successful and we can validate it with vic-machine inspect:

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docker --tls inspect vic-container-network

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[
    {
        "Name": "vic-container-network",
        "Id": "a6d0296afcace305048480244cca65564708a6dec474eb7d7a865593afdb593b",
        "Created": "2018-07-12T22:11:39.685754355Z",
        "Scope": "",
        "Driver": "external",
        "EnableIPv6": false,
        "IPAM": {
            "Driver": "",
            "Options": {},
            "Config": [
                {
                    "Subnet": "192.168.100.0/24",
                    "Gateway": "192.168.100.1"
                }
            ]
        },
        "Internal": false,
        "Attachable": false,
        "Containers": {},
        "Options": {},
        "Labels": {}
    }
]

At the end we need to validate the functionality as well and we´ll deploy a new Nginx but this time with the dedicated Container Network vic-container-network and without declaring the port.

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docker --tls run --name nginx3 --net vic-container-network vmwarecna/nginx

/img/posts/201807_vic_getting_started/CapturFiles-20180713_122610.jpg

There you go! :-)

World Cup 2018 CLI Dashboad Container

Just before coming to the end of my VIC series and because it´s Worldcup time, I´d like to show you a nice World Cup 2018 CLI dashboard by Cédric Blondeau running in a container.

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docker --tls pull cedricbl/world-cup-2018-cli-dashboard && \
docker --tls run --name Worldcup2018 -ti -e TZ=Europe/Berlin cedricbl/world-cup-2018-cli-dashboard