Running slopscale in a container

Run slopscale from its container image with Docker or Compose: config and data volumes, ports, the health check, and the debug image with a shell.

A container runtime such as Docker or Podman is required. The container image is on the GitHub Container Registry as ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:<VERSION>.

Configure and run slopscale

Create a directory on the container host to store slopscale’s configuration and the SQLite database:
```
mkdir -p ./slopscale/{config,lib}
cd ./slopscale
```
Download the example configuration for your chosen version and save it as: $(pwd)/config/config.yaml. Adjust the configuration to suit your local environment. See Configuration for details.

Start slopscale from within the previously created ./slopscale directory:

docker run \
  --name slopscale \
  --detach \
  --read-only \
  --tmpfs /var/run/slopscale \
  --tmpfs /tmp \
  --volume "$(pwd)/config:/etc/slopscale:ro" \
  --volume "$(pwd)/lib:/var/lib/slopscale" \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:9090:9090 \
  --health-cmd "CMD slopscale health" \
  ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:<VERSION> \
  serve

Note: use 0.0.0.0:8080:8080 instead of 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 if you want to expose the container externally.

This command mounts the local directories inside the container, forwards port 8080 and 9090 out of the container so the slopscale instance becomes available and then detaches so slopscale runs in the background.

A similar configuration for docker-compose:

services:
  slopscale:
    image: ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:<VERSION>
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: slopscale
    read_only: true
    tmpfs:
      - /var/run/slopscale
      - /tmp
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:8080:8080"
      - "127.0.0.1:9090:9090"
    volumes:
      # Please set <SLOPSCALE_PATH> to the absolute path
      # of the previously created slopscale directory.
      - <SLOPSCALE_PATH>/config:/etc/slopscale:ro
      - <SLOPSCALE_PATH>/lib:/var/lib/slopscale
    command: serve
    healthcheck:
        test: ["CMD", "slopscale", "health"]

Verify slopscale is running:

Follow the container logs:
```
docker logs --follow slopscale
```
Verify running containers:
```
docker ps
```
Verify slopscale is available:
```
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/health
```

Continue on the getting started page to register your first machine.

Debugging slopscale running in Docker

The Slopscale container image is based on a distroless image that does not contain a shell or any other debug tools. If you need to debug slopscale running in the Docker container, you can use the -debug variant, for example ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:x.x.x-debug.

Running the debug Docker container

To run the debug Docker container, use the exact same commands as above, but replace ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:x.x.x with ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:x.x.x-debug (x.x.x is the version of slopscale). The two containers are compatible with each other, so you can alternate between them.

Executing commands in the debug container

The default command in the debug container is to run slopscale, which is located at /ko-app/slopscale inside the container.

Additionally, the debug container includes a minimalist Busybox shell.

To launch a shell in the container, use:

docker run -it ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:x.x.x-debug sh

You can also execute commands directly, such as ls /ko-app in this example:

docker run ghcr.io/aislopware/slopscale:x.x.x-debug ls /ko-app

Using docker exec -it allows you to run commands in an existing container.