dockerRAM

Installs the docker snap in a tmpfs RAM-Disk and provides utility for that

You might ask yourself why you would want docker to be installed completely in a RAM-Disk.

1. It's fast
2. You can easily manage different states of the whole docker installation by putting the $HDD directory under version control
3. You can umount the RAM-disks to discard stuff.

The executer of these scripts is completly responsible for all damages this script might do to the system. Pull requests are very welcome.

Installation

This is only testet on Ubuntu 18.04. snap should be installed and your system should use systemd for this to work. Both of these requirements are filled by using Ubuntu 18.04.

You should already have a line like this:

tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0

in your /etc/fstab. You might want to read https://askubuntu.com/questions/173094/how-can-i-use-ram-storage-for-the-tmp-directory-and-how-to-set-a-maximum-amount for limiting the size. Remember that other software might have significant amounts of data in your /tmp folder. Such software would crash if no space was left on your RAM.

Reboot or mount -a #not recommended to complete your first step into tmpfs.

Edit dockerNEW, dockerRAM, dockerSAV, dockerKIL, dockerINF and change the location of your $TMPFS and your $HDD according to your system. Then create these folders:

sudo bash
mkdir -p /$HDD/docker
mkdir -p /$HDD/dockerprg
chmod 700 /$HDD/docker
chmod 700 /$HDD/dockerprg

I personally don't like to create a docker group on my linux systems. Thats why i put the scripts of this repository into /root/bin/. You might choose differently depending on your situation.

mkdir -p /root/bin
cd /root/bin
git clone https://github.com/Lamaun/dockerRAM.git
mv dockerRAM/docker* .
chmod 700 * # might change other scripts in this folder
rm -rf dockerRAM/

Installation complete.

Usage

• dockerNEW
  • removes the snap docker
  • installs a new snap docker in RAM
  • disables and stops the services of docker
• dockerSAV
  • writes to disk
• dockerRAM
  • loads from disk
  • starts docker
• dockerINF
  • prints some info about the current state
• dockerKIL
  • stops docker
  • frees ram

Installation of a new docker should be done in the following way:

dockerNEW # Install to RAM
dockerSAV # Copy to HDD
dockerRAM # Load from HDD and start dockerd

After some dockery you use dockerSAV to save your progress to disk. If your disk is a git repo you can than commit your progress.

After a reboot you only need dockerRAM or if you want to go back to a different version of your docker installation use the git first.

Troubleshoot

Issues I had at some point:

• ubuntu image got updated, somehow broke apt in the containers i had saved. -> rebuild after dockerNEW
• snap installed a new version of its core (Two files match core_* in /var/lib/snapd/snaps/) -> rm the one with the smaller number