Tips on using Docker 1.7 with Nirmata

Recently docker 1.7 was released and some of our customers are starting to use this with Nirmata. Docker 1.7 was a huge release with several new features & capabilities. Full release notes can be found at: https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

Given the significant changes in Docker 1.7, some of our users have run into problems getting it working with Nirmata. Here, I will try to provide some tips here to help address any issues you may face when trying out Docker 1.7 with Nirmata.

Some of our customers have reported containers not starting up with Docker 1.7. With 1.7, Docker supports the overlay storage driver. For some operating systems such as Ubuntu, the Linux kernel needs to be updated to 3.18. Overlay (without the FS) is a different kernel module, so you’ll need to install the 3.18 (or later) kernel.

Here are the steps:

 cd /tmp/
 wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb
 wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-headers-3.18.0-031800_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_all.deb
 wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.18-vivid/linux-image-3.18.0-031800-generic_3.18.0-031800.201412071935_amd64.deb
 sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.18.0-*.deb linux-image-3.18.0-*.deb

Update the docker config file (e..g /etc/default/docker) to use the overlay driver:

 DOCKER_OPTS=”-s overlay”;

You can then restart docker engine and verify that the overlay driver is being used by typing in the ‘docker info’ command:

 $ sudo docker info
 Containers: 0
 Images: 0
 Storage Driver: overlay
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Execution Driver: native-0.2
 Kernel Version: 3.18.0-031800-generic
 Operating System: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
 etc…

Also, at this time make sure that you have downloaded the latest nirmata-agent using the command:

 sudo curl -sSL http://www.nirmata.io/nirmata-host-agent/setup-nirmata-agent.sh | sudo sh -s <cloud provider type> <host group id>

This should start the nirmata agent.

In case the nirmata agent fails to start you may need to stop docker, clean up the old images and containers and start docker.

$ sudo stop docker
$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker/
$ sudo start docker

NOTE: The above commands will remove your docker containers and images so in case you need to access any stopped containers, you should create a backup.

Hopefully this will get you up and running.

Please let us know if you encountered any other issues using Docker 1.7 with Nirmata.

Thanks,
-Nirmata Team

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