IBM recently announced Docker support for Domino. It is supposed to come with FP10 at the end of this year.

Domino IMHO is not a microservic, but Domino on Docker has other advantages.

Think about a support person maintaining a product. All he needs to investigate a customer’s issue is the data from the customer and a Domino environment that is known to run the application stable. He can the create a new container from a Docker image, copy the files from the customer into the container, start Domino and then he can try to reproduce the issue.

You can also do this with VMs, but Docker images are more flexible. Our supporter might expect that the customer uses a specific version of Linux for the Domino server installation. But it turns out, that he uses the lastest build of the Linux OS.  You would need to setup a new VM with the Linux version that is needed, install and configure Domino etc … Waste of time and resources. Using Docker, this is just one change in a Dockerfile.

I will be speaking about Docker at AdminCamp 2017 in September. I will talk about Docker in general and also about Domino on Docker. In this blogpost, I want to show, how easy it is to create a Domino image ( optional with FP), and then build and run a Docker container from the image.

I assume that you already have Docker installed on a host. I am using RHEL 7 as the host OS for Docker.

Let us start with the basic Domino 9.0.1 image. I am using the excellent start scripts for Domino by Daniel Nashed. If you run Domino on Linux and you do not already have the scripts, get and use them.

First of all, create a new directory on your host. This directory will be used to store the needed Dockerfiles. You can also download the files and use them.

All Domino installation files should be accessible from a web server. replace the YOUR_HOST placeholder with your webserver

Here is the Dockerfile for the Domino 9.0.1 basic installation.

FROM centos

ENV DOM_SCR=resources/initscripts 
ENV DOM_CONF=resources/serverconfig 
ENV NUI_NOTESDIR /opt/ibm/domino/

RUN yum update -y && \
    yum install -y which && \
    yum install -y wget && \
	yum install -y perl && \
    useradd -ms /bin/bash notes && \
    usermod -aG notes notes && \
    usermod -d /local/notesdata notes && \
    sed -i '$d' /etc/security/limits.conf && \
    echo 'notes soft nofile 60000' >> /etc/security/limits.conf && \
    echo 'notes hard nofile 80000' >> /etc/security/limits.conf && \
    echo '# End of file' >> /etc/security/limits.conf

COPY ${DOM_CONF}/ /tmp/sw-repo/serverconfig

RUN mkdir -p /tmp/sw-repo/ && \
    cd /tmp/sw-repo/ && \
    wget -q http://YOUR_HOST/DOMINO_9.0.1_64_BIT_LIN_XS_EN.tar && \
    tar -xf DOMINO_9.0.1_64_BIT_LIN_XS_EN.tar &&\
    cd /tmp/sw-repo/linux64/domino && \
    /bin/bash -c "./install -silent -options /tmp/sw-repo/serverconfig/domino901_response.dat" && \
    cd / && \
    rm /tmp/* -R

RUN mkdir -p /etc/sysconfig/
COPY ${DOM_SCR}/rc_domino /etc/init.d/
RUN chmod u+x /etc/init.d/rc_domino && \
    chown root.root /etc/init.d/rc_domino
COPY ${DOM_SCR}/rc_domino_script /opt/ibm/domino/
RUN chmod u+x /opt/ibm/domino/rc_domino_script && \
    chown notes.notes /opt/ibm/domino/rc_domino_script
COPY ${DOM_SCR}/rc_domino_config_notes /etc/sysconfig/

We install Domino on the latest CentOS build; if you want to use a specific CentOS build, change the first line in the Dockerfile and add the buildnumber.

You can see a lot of commands that have been combined into one RUN statement. Doing it this way, you can keep the image size a bit smaller. Each RUN command would create an extra layer and this will increase the size of your image.

So, in the first part, we update the CentOS image from the Docker repository with the latest fixes and also install additional packages that we need for the Domino installation.
Next, we copy our response.dat file and the start scripts to our image.
Now we download the Domino 9.0.1 installation package, unpack it and do a silent installation using our response.dat file for configuration.
Last part is installation of the start script files, assigning user and group and granting permissions

All temporary files are also deleted.

Now we can create an image from the Dockerfile.

docker build -t eknori/domino:9_0_1 -f Dockerfile .

This will take about 10 – 15 minutes. When the build is completed, we can list our image

# docker images

eknori/domino 9_0_1 96b6220d177c 14 hours ago 1.883 GB

Next we will use this image and install FP9. If you need some other FP, tweak the Dockerfile to your own needs. Once you get familiar to Docker, this is easy.

FROM eknori/domino:9_0_1

ENV DOM_CONF=resources/serverconfig
ENV NUI_NOTESDIR /opt/ibm/domino/

COPY ${DOM_CONF}/ /tmp/sw-repo/serverconfig

RUN mkdir -p /tmp/sw-repo/ && \
cd /tmp/sw-repo/ && \
wget -q http://YOUR_HOST/domino901FP9_linux64_x86.tar && \
tar -xf domino901FP9_linux64_x86.tar &&\
cd /tmp/sw-repo/linux64/domino && \
/bin/bash -c "./install -script /tmp/sw-repo/serverconfig/domino901_fp9_response.dat" && \
cd / && \
rm /tmp/* -R && \
rm /opt/ibm/domino/notes/90010/linux/90010/* -R

A much shorter Dockerfile, as we already have installed Domino and now can reuse the 9_0_1 image as the base image for our 9_0_1_FP_9 image.

The last line in the RUN command removes the uninstall information. Maybe this can be done in the response.dat file also, but you should do this anyway, as we do not need the backup files.

Again, build the new image.

docker build -t eknori/domino:9_0_1_FP_9 -f Dockerfile .

# docker images
eknori/domino 9_0_1_FP_9 ed0276f21d73 14 hours ago 3.296 GB

Now we can build or final Domino 9.0.1FP9 from the 9_0_1_FP_9.

Our Dockerfile looks like this

FROM eknori/domino:9_0_1_FP_9

EXPOSE 25 80 443 1352

COPY resources/docker-entrypoint.sh /
RUN chmod 775 /docker-entrypoint.sh

USER notes
WORKDIR /local/notesdata
ENV LOGNAME=notes
ENV PATH=$PATH:/opt/ibm/domino/

ENTRYPOINT ["/docker-entrypoint.sh"]

and the file used in the ENTRYPOINT command contains the following

#!/bin/bash

serverID=/local/notesdata/server.id

if [ ! -f "$serverID" ]; then
/opt/ibm/domino/bin/server -listen 1352
else
/opt/ibm/domino/rc_domino_script start
/bin/bash
fi

The ENTRYPOINT is executed when the container starts. The script just checks, if the server is already configured. If not, it starts the server in LISTEN mode. If it finds a server.id, it starts the server.

Let us build or final image.

docker build -t eknori/domino:domino_9_0_1_FP_9 -f Dockerfile .

# docker images
eknori/domino domino_9_0_1_FP_9 1fae2fe73df4 2 hours ago 3.296 GB

Now we are ready to create a container from the image. But we need one additional step. All changes that we make in a container will be lost, once the container is stopped. So we need to create a persitent data store and attach it to the container.

To create a persitent volume, type

docker volume create –name=domino_data

And then type

docker run -it -p 1352:1352 -p 8888:80 -p 8443:443 –name 901FP7 -v domino_data:/local/notesdata eknori/domino:domino_9_0_1_FP_9

to build and run the container. I have used port 1352 instead of 8585 to avoid to open another port on the host system.

After the build, the ENTRYPOINT will start the Domino server in LISTEN mode. You can now setup your server using the remote setup tool.

After you have setup your server, close the remote setup and stop Domino. This will also stop your container.

You can start and get access to the container with

docker start 901FP9
docker attach 901FP9

This gives you great flexibility. Once FP10 is in the wild, create a new image from the 9_0_1 image and install FP10. Then create a new image for your final Domino installation. Run this image and attach the persitent volume.