{"id":2183,"date":"2016-03-03T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/?p=2183"},"modified":"2025-06-13T22:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T05:57:10","slug":"communicating-with-couchbase-via-a-dockerfile-script-and-docker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/communicating-with-couchbase-via-a-dockerfile-script-and-docker\/","title":{"rendered":"Communicating with Couchbase via a Dockerfile Script and Docker"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been working on a project with my team that involves creating a selection of microservices. These microservices populate a
\nCouchbase Server bucket with data on an interval of our choosing and operate via an AWS EC2 server. The problem is that everyone on
\nmy team has a preferred programming language. If we were to install every server side language to this server it would probably become
\nexpensive. Instead we decided to use Docker containers for each microservice. Since we are only running them on an interval, we can
\nremove the container after every run keeping our core server lightweight and uncluttered with software.<\/p>\n

We’re going to walk through some of the stuff we’ve been doing to make this solution possible.<\/p>\n

Configuring Docker on an EC2 Instance<\/h2>\n

Let’s assume that our Amazon EC2 host is Ubuntu 14.04 because as of now that is the long term support release of Ubuntu. Log into
\nthe EC2 host and execute the following as a sudoer:<\/p>\n

\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get install docker.io\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
The above will install Docker on the host and not as a virtual machine like you might experience in a Mac or Windows environment.<\/p>\n
At this point in time Docker can be used. Our intention is to use a build script, but you can use it manually as well. If you
\nhaven’t already installed Couchbase on the EC2 instance you can do that as well. Download the latest Debian file from the
\nCouchbase Downloads<\/a> section and execute the following:<\/p>\n
\r\ndpkg -i download-file-name.deb\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Alternatively you can choose to spin up an Amazon EC2 instance that is already running Couchbase Server. More information on that
\nsubject can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Designing a Build Script<\/h2>\n
The Dockerfile<\/strong> is our build script for creating Docker images. In it we define what operating system to use, what
\npackages it will download, and what files it will contain.<\/p>\n
I’m more of a Node.js guy so my microservices on this project are Node.js. Some of the others used Java and Python although this article
\nisn’t specific to any language. The build file for one of my microservices looks like the following:<\/p>\n
\r\nFROM ubuntu:trusty\r\nMAINTAINER Nic Raboy\r\n\r\nENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND noninteractive\r\nENV DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN true\r\n\r\nRUN apt-get update\r\nRUN apt-get install -yq libcurl3 curl\r\n\r\nRUN curl -sL https:\/\/deb.nodesource.com\/setup_4.x | bash -\r\n\r\nRUN apt-get update && apt-get install -yq nodejs\r\n\r\nCOPY package.json app.js config.json mock_data.xml \/\r\nCOPY models \/models\r\nCOPY routes \/routes\r\n\r\nRUN npm install\r\n\r\nCMD [\"node\", \"app.js\"]\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
To break the above file down, let’s look at all the pieces.<\/p>\n
First we determine that this image will be Ubuntu 14.04 and non-interactive. This will be a base image so before we can start
\nrunning Node.js projects we need to install the dependencies. We update the operating system repository list and install curl<\/strong> because
\nUbuntu doesn’t ship with it by default and we’ll need it to install the Node.js repository. Once curl<\/strong> is installed
\nwe can add the Node.js 4.x repository and install the software.<\/p>\n
This is where things become a little more specific to my project. My project has the following files and directories:<\/p>\n