Thought it might be useful for anyone who has read Pablo’s blog post - this is
a comment that I have tried to add (hopefully it will come through there):
Nice article which was very helpful in getting me quickly up to speed on
deploying a Pharo app with Docker. It might be worth adding a small addendum -
when build doing a "docker build" I had some issues, and adding an additional
switch "--progress=plain" gives much more verbose output that can help better
see whats going on.
I also feel its quite important to call out that the "eval 'Metacello new..."
command referenced in the DockerFile RUN - is only going to work on a public
repository. This had me stumped when I tried the example on my repository - and
its made particularly mysterious because the Docker output (even with
--progress=plain) shows nothing - it just echo's the VM info text and then
stops and hangs. I think this is something that should be addressed either by
the BA Docker image (I've reported it as an issue there for now) or by Pharo
(in my case it was P8). I am guessing that there is a credentials error/system
prompter sitting waiting for user input. I think there should be a way to
disable this behaviour somehow - but at the very least it should write
something out to stderr so that you know something has happened?
Luckily there is an easy fix (for anyone wanting to load their own private
project) - rather than using the "eval" command, use the "st" command and
specify a load.st script. In this script specify some IceCredentialStore
details eg:
IceCredentialStore current
storeCredential: (IceTokenCredentials new
username: 'em...@mail.com';
token: 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
yourself)
forHostname: 'gitlab.com'.
Metacello new
baseline: 'myapp';
repository: 'gitlab://me/repo'';
onConflict: [ :ex | ex useLoaded ];
onUpgradeUseLoaded;
onWarningLog;
load.
Hopefully this might help anyone else directed here.
I also added some extra logging to my load.st - eg.
| logger |
logger := Stdio stderr.
logger crlf; nextPutAll: 'Starting Load Script...'.
Tim
> On 6 Apr 2021, at 18:09, Tim Mackinnon <tim@testit.works> wrote:
>
> Adding some thoughts to my own post - I have experimented with dockerize.io
> <http://dockerize.io/> and so far the $2 plan (which so far I haven't been
> charged for) has been quite adequate for hosting something simple (and I
> suspect the $5 plan would do the trick as well).
>
> It does get a bit more pricey when you add a database and unlimited traffic
> (60GB MySQL Database: 4GB, 1000m + no traffic + 60GB persistance + 100 mb
> logs = $26/m) - but even then thats pretty good.
>
> It was relatively easy to do (doesn't have native Github integration yet, but
> has a cli for easy deployment) , and given what Esteban mentioned of his
> experience - this seems worth pursuing for ease of deployment/maintenance.
>
> I did find Pablo's instructions were a bit limited - in particular covering a
> private repo (and how Pharo and the BA docker image give no output on
> credential failure - I've raised an issue on BA github, but may be a pharo
> thing - not yet sure - but it is quite easy to overcome). It also doesn't
> cover safe credential storage and best practices etc. (so hopefully a future
> article from someone more experienced in this?)
>
> I'm curious if others have experienced anything similar they can share? I am
> a bit nervous the dockerize.io <http://dockerize.io/> has little history
> (been around since 2019 allegedly) - but for my experimentation its fine.
> Others may need more, and I'm wondering where to help document this as
> deployment is a big stumbling block - that we actually can handle quite well
> with recent tooling.
>
> In this vein - I wonder where SmalltalkCI sits? Do you need it for a plain
> Pharo app - you just need to grep the output of Metacello and your test
> runner - but perhaps it does this better (I can see the need for building
> multiple platforms etc).
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2021, at 10:32 AM, Tim Mackinnon wrote:
>> Thanks Sanjay - you have reminded me that I have some similar notes
>> somewhere (now located) that did the command line foo to get things running
>> - looking at mine there was quite a big of dance to provide a way to
>> gracefully stop and start the image so that you can easily and automatically
>> redeploy your changes (read: use Github actions or Gitlab CI).
>>
>> So I’m curious on whether Docker is now sufficiently stable
>> stable/easy/cheap to make it a viable alternative - and whether that is also
>> cost efficient.
>>
>> Pablo wrote a recent blog post on running Pharo in Docker using the BA
>> images - https://thepharo.dev/2021/02/24/running-pharo-9-in-docker/
>> <https://thepharo.dev/2021/02/24/running-pharo-9-in-docker/> - but while
>> easy on the surface, if anything goes wrong - there seems to be very little
>> debug output to know what has happened (I’ll post separately on this - as
>> I’m looking at comparing options here).
>>
>> With Docker options, I notice that dockerize.io <http://dockerize.io/> (not
>> used, just a quick search) - has a micro plan for $2/m - but is 500mb ram
>> enough (there is a $5 one for 1gm ram).
>>
>> Or - I stick with DigitalOcean and roll my own like before - and perhaps
>> that has got a bit simpler.
>>
>> I’m still curious what the wider community is doing.
>>
>>
>> Tim
>>
>>> On 2 Apr 2021, at 05:43, Sanjay Minni <s...@planage.com
>>> <mailto:s...@planage.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Tim
>>>
>>> Here are my notes on installing Pharo in a DigitalOcean Ubuntu droplet.
>>> I usually go thru a Windows Command prompt box having installed xfec4 in
>>> the ubuntu droplet, but the command line connect and graphical remote may
>>> be easier for a Linux users. my ssh public key is also in the DO droplet
>>> Now the first step for me is a installing Pharo launcher thru command line
>>> and then everything is thru graphical interface
>>>
>>> Installing and checking Pharo-Launcher, Installing Pharo 8 64 bit from
>>> pharo.org <http://pharo.org/> (instructions as on Pharo.org
>>> <http://pharo.org/>)
>>> 1. In Windows 10 command prompt connect thru > ssh root@<Droplet-ip>
>>> 2. cd
>>> 3. curl -o pharo-launcher.zip -L
>>> https://files.pharo.org/pharo-launcher/linux64
>>> <https://files.pharo.org/pharo-launcher/linux64>
>>> 4. unzip pharo-launcher.zip
>>> or thru the GUI-> extract here
>>> (pharo-launcher files will be extracted in ./pharo-launcher)
>>> Now while connected to the linux graphical interface thru windows remote
>>> terminal and in the GUI
>>> 5. Create a icon on desktop thru right-click “Create Launcher” for
>>> pharo-launcher
>>> 6. Create pharo images thru pharo-launcher
>>>
>>> hope this is of use
>>>
>>> Sanjay Minni
>>>
>>> On Thu, 1 Apr 2021 at 16:31, Tim Mackinnon <tim@testit.works
>>> <mailto:tim@testit.works>> wrote:
>>> Hi everyone - its been a few year since I last hosted a little Pharo web
>>> app - and the last time I did, Sven pointed me to DigitalOcean and creating
>>> a tiny instance and configuring an Ubuntu server and then copying a pharo
>>> image on to that. It recall it wasn’t too bad, albeit a bit fiddly…
>>>
>>> Now several years later - I can’t recall the exact steps, and vaguely
>>> recall there was something about 32bit vs 64bit setup etc - but am
>>> wondering if things have advanced a bit and whether its much simpler these
>>> days? I’ve seen references to Docker images for Pharo, and am wondering if
>>> now that is a prime time way to easily get a small demo application up and
>>> running with minimal fuss.
>>>
>>> Does anyone have advice - or something to point me to?
>>>
>>> Ideally I want to hook something up in Gitlab CI do deploy to this thing
>>> automatically (this is where I got to a few years ago - but in picking
>>> things back up I am hoping this has all got much simpler).
>>>
>>> Tim
