Running PyLith in a portable, Linux environment via Docker

See the PyLith User Manual (v2.2.0) for the latest instructions. The instructions here do not include how to use applications with graphical-user interfaces within the container.

From https://www.docker.com/what-docker:

“Docker containers wrap a piece of software in a complete filesystem that contains everything needed to run: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries – anything that can be installed on a server. This guarantees that the software will always run the same, regardless of its environment.

LIGHTWEIGHT

Containers running on a single machine share the same operating system kernel; they start instantly and use less RAM. Images are constructed from layered filesystems and share common files, making disk usage and image downloads much more efficient.”

https://www.docker.com/products/docker

This container, called pylith-data, will hold a directory where all your user data can be stored for use with PyLith within Docker. The data can persist for different versions of PyLith; that is, you can update to a newer version of PyLith and your user data will still be available. This directory is not directly accessible from your host computer. However, you can copy files to/from your host filesystem using “docker cp” (see below).

$ docker create --name pylith-data geodynamics/pylith-data

$ docker run -ti --volumes-from pylith-data geodynamics/pylith

HINT: Within the container, you will probably want to copy the examples from the pylith-VERSION directory to the data directory, which is the persistent storage.

$ cp -R ~/pylith-VERSION/examples ~/data

• To “pause” the container. Control-p Control-q
• To attach to a “paused” or “running” container.
  1. Get container id $ docker ps
  2. Attach to container $ docker attach CONTAINER_ID

docker: Error response from daemon: oci runtime error: process_linux.go:330: running prestart hook 0 caused "fork/exec /usr/bin/dockerd (deleted): no such file or directory: ".

• Restart docker. $ sudo service docker restart
• Run docker image. $ docker run -ti –volumes-from pylith-data geodynamics/pylith

These commands are run on the local host outside the container, not inside the Docker container.

• Copy data FROM persistent storage volume TO local host

$ docker cp pylith-data:/data/pylith-user/PATH/FILENAME LOCAL_PATH

• Copy data FROM local host TO persistent storage volume

$ docker cp LOCAL_PATH pylith-data:/data/pylith-user/PATH/

• List local docker images $ docker images
• List all docker containers $ docker ps -a
• List running docker containers $ docker ps
• Remove docker container $ docker rm CONTAINER_ID
• Remove docker image $ docker rmi IMAGE_ID