Docker + CouchDB optimal configuration for continuous deployment

Question

I have recently started to experiment with Docker and when it comes to code deployments (i.e. node server) it works extremely well. However when it comes to deployment of a couchDB server it poses a challenge. The challenging aspect is probably related to my ignorance on the topic.

The current setup: Continuous deployment to AWS EC2 instance
The Issue: Every deployment wipes the database and reinstalls couchDB
End goal: Deployments should not remove and reinstall the database. They should simply update the couchdb configuration if one is provided (i.e. turn off admin party mode, add user, ...)

Dockerfile: Pretty simple: FROM couchdb:latest

What are some approaches I can use to accomplish this?

Answer 1

You have to make your Data Volume persistent.

1. Option:

Mount Host Directory into the container

docker run -rm -p 5984:5984 -v /srv/db_files:/usr/local/var/lib/couchdb --name couchdb klaemo/couchdb:1.6.1

2. Option:

A Datastore container (which doesn't reset after recreateing the couchdb container)

Create Datastore

docker create -v /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb --name datastore busybox:latest /bin/true

(it's also possible to mount a host dir into the datastore container)

docker create -v /srv/db_files:/usr/local/var/lib/couchdb --name datastore busybox:latest /bin/true

Use Datastore

docker run -d --volumes-from datastore -p 5984:5984 --name db1 klaemo/couchdb bash

Answer 2

I think the best way to configure CouchDB without wiping out the whole server, is running a script with curl.

For instance, you can enable CORS with the following script (I am using Windows and the escaping is different from UNIX) so I created a BAT file with the following:

set host=%1
echo %host%

if [%host%] == [] (
    SET host=http://localhost:32770
)

curl -X PUT %host%/_config/httpd/enable_cors -d "\"true\""
curl -X PUT %host%/_config/cors/origins -d "\"*\""
curl -X PUT %host%/_config/cors/credentials -d "\"true\""
curl -X PUT %host%/_config/cors/methods -d "\""GET, PUT, POST, HEAD, DELETE\""
curl -X PUT %host%/_config/cors/headers -d "\"accept, authorization, content-type, origin, referer, x-csrf-token\""
curl -X PUT %host%/mydb

NodeJS has a plugin which does the same CORS configuration for you: https://github.com/pouchdb/add-cors-to-couchdb.

Using curl you can change all the configurations you want, including creating databases, users and records.