Note: These are my findings after working with Docker, Jenkins, and AWS for only 2-3 months. This post details my thought process for the workflow I have set up with Docker and was written to document my progress. However, it might be useful for other beginners who are interested in setting up a better workflow for development with Node.js and Docker.

The Problem

Our development team occasionally has to switch between different projects. Each project has its own set of dependencies requiring a specific version of Node.js, npm, and/or Ruby to be run. Using nvm and rvm can mitigate the issue, but constantly switching between versions is a hassle and it is easy to lose track of which version you’re currently using. Time is also wasted on debugging environment inconsistencies between local development machines, and even more time is lost solving cross-platform issues when deploying to the dev/qa/prod servers (OSX to Linux). Many hours were lost for both the development and system administration teams debugging these issues; hours that could instead be spent improving the current project or working on other projects.

I’ve been hearing good things about Docker ever since I started working professionally as a web developer. However, a lot of the deployment process was abstracted from me. The projects I worked on were mature and had an established workflow. The code I pushed up to Github will end up magically working on the staging server and then to production. A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity see a new project grow through its infancy. I saw a lot of problems with getting a project working locally to work on production. Something would break every few pushes and time would be wasted getting the devleopers and system administrators together to figure out a solution. After hearing so many good things about Docker and how it aims to solve the problems we were having in production, I suggested that we use Docker to develop our application and ship it to production.

Knowing absolutely nothing about Docker, these are the problems I faced and the references I used to figure out a workflow for our developers. This is yet another blog post where I jot down my thoughts and decision making, and not really walking through anything.

Here are some notes I took on how I set up my Jenkins server and deployed my application to Elastic Beanstalk on every git push.

After using Docker to deploy last month, I’ve decided to try deploying using Capistrano and nginx for my current project.

Helpful links: http://robmclarty.com/blog/how-to-deploy-a-rails-4-app-with-git-and-capistrano

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-automate-ruby-on-rails-application-deployments-using-capistrano

https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/walkthroughs/deploy/ruby/ownserver/nginx/oss/precise/deploy_app.html

Last week, I deployed a Rails app in a Docker container onto AWS Elastic Beanstalk. It was an unncessarily time consuming task due to small gaps in my knowledge and unfamiliarity with Docker and Elastic Beanstalk. This blog post is written during my first month working as a junior system administrator (“devops”) and this is a recap of my experience to the best of my memory.

Super helpful links: https://github.com/phusion/passenger-docker https://intercityup.com/blog/deploy-rails-app-including-database-configuration-env-vars-assets-using-docker.html https://intercityup.com/blog/how-i-build-a-docker-image-for-my-rails-app.html https://rossfairbanks.com/2015/03/06/rails-app-on-docker-using-passenger-image.html

Thanks to these blog posts (amongst many others), I was able to cut down a lot of time out of learning how to deploy this rails app.

First thing’s first. I installed docker-machine, which is the new boot2docker, and attempted to run my docker image containing the Rails app locally, in production, on my Macbook.

Developing on OSX is a dream. I love my Macbook and I love developing on it. However, I’ve always been a PC enthusiast and most of my time is spent on my desktop computer. I stick with Windows as my main operating system when I’m not developing because Linux offers a subpar gaming experience, and my entire music library resides on iTunes, which is not supported on Linux. I have happily turned this computer into a Hackintosh before for a few months when I started out web development, but rather than dual-boot into Linux/OSX, I decided to give virtualization a try.

Why use VMs?

Simply put, my Windows machine completely outclasses my Macbook. The screen real estate and dedicated mouse/keyboard really speeds up my development. Futhermore, as a formal avid gamer, I’ve grown very accustomed to Windows and I just prefer to use it as my main OS. Dual booting is a completely viable option, save for the fact that I would have to boot back into Windows to play a game or listen to my music. I already have OSX on my Macbook in case I want to have a dedicated environment, so spinning up a VM seems to be a great choice for my development needs.