bc dockerfile

[Brian Dietz]

 Hey everyone!

I was excited when I heard the BC team had released a dockerfile (https://hub.docker.com/r/bitcurator/bitcurator). Using it, I've built an image, run a container, tried a few commands in a terminal, and also tested out the X11 functionality. It feels promising!

Shelly Black and I (NC State) have been working on container-related stuff, too, and we expect to use containers in our production environment this spring (Mac, Windows, and RHEL). We have a repo that includes a dockerfile, two compose files (one specific to Windows) and an env. file; the supporting resources set the user and map drives properly between host and container. (Here's our repo: https://github.com/NCSU-Libraries/bdap. We expect to continue to refine these documents as we learn more.) We've also been working with Farrell (Duke) on this and comparing needs and notes. Shelly, Farrell, and I are pretty hopeful about how containers might help with deployment, maintenance, and extensibility of our tool sets.

I'm hoping that someone would be willing to share a little bit more how containers might fit into the BCC landscape. Are there expectations about how people will use the BC dockerfile. Do you think people might use it to run a container that's an alternative to the VM? Has a containerized toolset been identified as something that will be promoted, documented, and maintained by the BCC?

Eager to learn and discuss more, and also happy to share our experiences to date.

Thanks!

Brian