Deployment pipelines

Let's set up a deployment pipeline from GitHub to a host machine. We will demonstrate this using your local machine, but the same steps can be used for Raspberry Pi or even a virtual machine in the cloud (such as one provided by Hetzner).

We will use GitHub Actions to build an image, push the image to Docker Hub, and then use a project called "Watchtower" automatically pull the image from there.

Let's work with the repository https://github.com/docker-hy/docker-hy.github.io as it already has a Dockerfile and the GitHub Actions config for our convenience.

First either fork the repository or clone it as your own.

Let's go over the GitHub Actions instructions. We will be using the official actions offered by docker, but we could've just installed docker and ran docker build. Most of the following is simply copied from the action usage instructions:

name: Release DevOps with Docker # Name of the workflow

# On a push to the branch named master
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master

# Job called build runs-on ubuntu-latest
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    # Checkout to the repository (the actions don't actually need this since they use the repository context anyway)
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    # We need to login so we can later push the image without issues.
    - name: Login to DockerHub
      uses: docker/login-action@v1
      with: {% raw %}
        username: ${{ secrets.DOCKERHUB_USERNAME }}
        password: ${{ secrets.DOCKERHUB_TOKEN }}
            {% endraw %}
    # Builds devopsdockeruh/docker-hy.github.io
    - name: Build and push
      uses: docker/build-push-action@v2
      with:
        push: true
        tags: devopsdockeruh/coursepage:latest

Before this will work we will need to add 2 Secrets to the repository: DOCKERHUB_TOKEN and DOCKERHUB_USERNAME. This is done by opening the repository in browser and first pressing Settings then Secrets. The DOCKERHUB_TOKEN can be created in Docker Hub, click your username and then Account Settings and Security.

Now create a docker-compose.yml. We will use watchtower to automate the updates.

Watchtower is an open source project that automates the task of updating images. It will poll the source of the image (in this case dockerhub) for changes in the containers that are running. The container that is running will be updated when a new version of the image is pushed to docker hub. Watchtower respects tags e.g. container using ubuntu:18.04 will not be updated unless a new version of ubuntu:18.04 is released.

version: "3"
services:
  coursematerial:
    image: devopsdockeruh/coursepage
    ports:
      - 4000:80
    container_name: coursematerial
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    environment:
      -  WATCHTOWER_POLL_INTERVAL=60 # Poll every 60 seconds
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    container_name: watchtower

Before running docker-compose up here, beware that watchtower will try to update every image running in case there is a new version. Check the documentation if you want to prevent this.

Run this with docker-compose up and commit something new into the repository. When you do the git push, follow how the github actions pushes a new image to DockerHub and then watchtower pulls the new image to your machine.