From https://github.com/ginpei/docker-rails-example

Rails on Docker example and tutorial

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This is an example and tutorial to build and run your Rails app on Docker.

For Windows users

Replace `pwd` with %CD% in your Command Prompt or PowerShell.

Otherwise you would see an error like following:

docker: Error response from daemon: create `pwd`/app: “pwd/app” includes invalid characters for a local volume name, only “[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9_.-]” are allowed. If you intended to pass a host directory, use absolute path.

Preparation

You need followings:

• Docker installed

Try this example

Clone this repository.

$ git clone git@github.com:ginpei/docker-rails-example.git
$ cd docker-rails-example/

Up Docker container.

$ docker-compose up

Open another console and run this to initialize database.

$ cd docker-rails-example/
$ docker-compose exec rails rake db:create db:migrate db:seed

Open in browser.

• http://localhost:3000/

To stop, in the console where docker-compose is running, hit Ctrl + C and wait.

Gracefully stopping... (press Ctrl+C again to force)
Stopping docker-rails-example_rails_1   ... done
Stopping docker-rails-example_db_1      ... done

$

Create a new Rails app

1. Prepare a directory for the app
2. Run rails new in Docker
3. Describe a Docker image for your app where gems are installed
4. Database configuration
5. Prepare Docker component file with database specification
6. Ignore database files
7. Up them
8. Stop them (once)
9. Open another console
10. Initialize database
11. Open in browser

We name the app "my-great-app". Please do not forget replace this with your great app's name.

Directory structure would be this:

my-great-app/
+ app/
|  - (Rails app files like `config.ru`)
+ db/
|  - (Database files)
+ .gitignore
+ docker-compose.yml
+ Dockerfile
+ README.md

Prepare a directory for the app

$ mkdir my-great-app
$ cd my-great-app

We will be working here.

Run rails new in Docker

This step can be broken down into smaller steps.

1. Start docker container
2. rails new
3. Create empty Gemfile.lock
4. Expose created files to your host computer
5. Exit from docker container

First of all, run a docker container:

$ mkdir app
$ docker run --rm -ti -v `pwd`/app:/app rails:5.0.1 bash

5.0.1 is a tag of the image, as Rails version. Find available tags here:

• library/rails - Docker Hub

This should take long time when you try at the first time since Docker downloads a Docker image of Rails. From next time, it would up soon.

Then you'll see you are in docker container. You may want to check the rails version:

root@b4227fbcb3b1:/# rails --version
Rails 5.0.1
root@b4227fbcb3b1:/#

Note that, inside a Docker container, you cannot use Ctrl-P. This is a special key for Docker.

In the container, run rails new with some options.

root@b4227fbcb3b1:/# rails new my-great-app --skip-bundle --database=mysql
      create
      create  README.md
      create  Rakefile
      create  config.ru
...
      create  vendor/assets/stylesheets
      create  vendor/assets/stylesheets/.keep
      remove  config/initializers/cors.rb
root@b4227fbcb3b1:/#

--skip-bundle option, as you read, skips bundle install. The installation will happen later so you don't do that for now.

--database option is up to you. In this tutorial, we chose MySQL as the DBMS for our Rails app.

Since we skipped bundle install, we need empty lock file for after operation.

$ touch /my-great-app/Gemfile.lock

To expose result to you host computer, move the generated files to the shared volume. And exit.

root@b4227fbcb3b1:/# cp -rT my-great-app/* /app
root@b4227fbcb3b1:/# exit

-T option of cp is to copy dot files (.gitignore).

(The reason we didn't generate files directly in /app is Rails generates files using the directory name with template. Please let me know if you know the way to do that directly.)

Check the files exist on your computer outside Docker container.

$ ls -a app/
.   .gitignore  Gemfile.lock  Rakefile  bin     config.ru  lib  public  tmp
..  Gemfile     README.md     app       config  db         log  test    vendor

Describe an image for your app where gems are installed

Create a new file named Dockerfile, which has no extension:

FROM rails:5.0.1

RUN mkdir /app
WORKDIR /app

COPY ./app/Gemfile /app/Gemfile
COPY ./app/Gemfile.lock /app/Gemfile.lock

RUN bundle install
CMD rm /app/tmp/pids/server.pid ; rails s

Database configuration

Although we haven't got database ready yet, modify rails configuration a little.

Change host: localhost to host: db in app/config/database.yml:

default: &default
  adapter: mysql2
  encoding: utf8
  pool: 5
  username: root
  password:
  host: db

This db will be used in the next step as a service name in docker-compose.yml.

Prepare Docker component file with database specification

Create a new file named docker-compose.yml as following:

version: "3"

services:

  rails:
    build: ./
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - ./app:/app
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: mysql
    volumes:
      - ./db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: "true"

This prepares a database for root user without password. It's unsafe in some cases but you know this is only for development.

Ignore database files

If you use git, create .gitignore and ignore database files:

/db/

Up them

$ docker-compose up

This takes longer time for the first time too.

First, it builds an image from your Dockerfile for your project. This process includes bundle install.

Second, after starting, MySQL creates database files in db.

Take your time until your console gets calm down.

Stop them (once)

Try to stop the containers by holding Ctrl-C in the console. Closing process may take time. Be patient.

Gracefully stopping... (press Ctrl+C again to force)
Stopping docker-rails-example_rails_1   ... done
Stopping docker-rails-example_db_1      ... done

$

If you get how to up and end it, up again and move on to the next.

Open another console

Keep the Docker containers running.

While they are running, you need to open a new console to work.

Initialize database

In the 2nd console just you opened, type following line to create database while running docker-compose up in the 1st one.

$ docker-compose exec rails rake db:create
Created database 'my-great-app_development'
Created database 'my-great-app_test'

Open in browser

Open http://localhost:3000/ and look at what you have done! Yay! You’re on Rails!

Up your project from the next time

Now it's simple.

$ docker-compose up

And open http://localhost:3000/.

You may need the 2nd console to run commands like rails g scaffold.

Update your project

General idea

You may want to run rails, rake or any other commands. For those cases, the most basic idea is running docker-compose exec rails xxx.

Let's say you want to echo here. You would use this:

$ docker-compose exec rails echo Hello from Docker container!

Please remember you have to type this command into your 2nd console, next the 1st one where your docker-compose up is running.

When you want to generate a scaffold

$ docker-compose exec rails rails g scaffold post title:string body:text
      invoke  active_record
      create    db/migrate/20180806212720_create_posts.rb
      create    /models/post.rb
...
      create      /assets/stylesheets/posts.scss
      invoke  scss
      create    /assets/stylesheets/scaffolds.scss

Don't forget migration! (See next chapter.)

When you generated a new migration

$ docker-compose exec rails rake db:migrate
== 20180806212720 CreatePosts: migrating ======================================
-- create_table(:posts)
   -> 0.0766s
== 20180806212720 CreatePosts: migrated (0.0769s) =============================

When you want to run test

$ docker-compose exec rails rake test
Run options: --seed 52703

# Running:

.......

Finished in 1.302024s, 5.3762 runs/s, 6.9123 assertions/s.
7 runs, 9 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips

When you added new gems

When you update Gemfile, you used to run bundle install.

With Docker, you need to rebuild your image instead. This process includes bundle install and updates Gemfile.lock.

To rebuild, give --force-recreate option.

$ docker-compose.exe up --build

Otherwise you would see an error like this (you could miss it because the log is too long to read):

rails_1  | /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/bundler-1.13.7/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:366:in `block in verify_gemfile_dependencies_are_found!': Could not find gem 'carrierwave' in any of the gem sources listed in your Gemfile or available on this machine. (Bundler::GemNotFound)
rails_1  |      from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/bundler-1.13.7/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:341:in `each'
...
rails_1  |      from /usr/local/bundle/bin/rails:15:in `<main>'

Join somebody's project

These steps should be described in the project's README documentation.

1. Clone the repository
2. Up Docker containers
3. Initialize database
4. Start your job

Clone the repository

$ git clone ...
$ cd xxx

Up Docker containers

$ docker-compose up

Hold Ctrl-C to stop.

Initialize database

Open another console and run:

$ docker-compose exec rails rake db:create db:migrate db:seed

Start your job

Open http://localhost:3000/ (and another console maybe) and start your job.

Let's rock!