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AppJail Director

AppJail Director is a tool for running multi-jail environments on AppJail using a simple YAML specification. A Director file is used to define how one or more jails that make up your application are configured. Once you have a Director file, you can create and start your application with a single command: appjail-director up.

Quick Start

Using AppJail Director is a three-step process:

  1. Define your app's environment with a Makejail so it can be reproduced anywhere.
  2. Define the services that make up your app in appjail-director.yml so they can be run together in an isolated environment.
  3. Lastly, run appjail-director up and Director will start and run your entire app.

A Director file looks like this:

options:
  - virtualnet: ':<random> default'
  - nat:
services:
  web:
    makejail: Makejail
    options:
      - expose: 5000
    volumes:
      - appdata: /app/data
  mariadb:
    makejail: gh+AppJail-makejails/mariadb
    arguments:
      - mariadb_user: 'example-user'
      - mariadb_password: 'my_cool_secret'
      - mariadb_database: 'appdb'
      - mariadb_root_password: 'my-secret-pw'
volumes:
  appdata:
    device: ./appdata

Installation

Bleeding-edge version:

pkg install -y py311-pipx
pipx install git+https://github.com/DtxdF/director.git
appjail-director --help

Note: Remember to add ~/.local/bin to PATH.

Stable version:

pkg install -y py311-director

AppJail must be installed before using Director.

Note about non-root users

If you want to run Director with a non-root user, you must configure AppJail to do so.

By default, ~/.director is used as the base directory, so every file generated by Director will belong to you.

Ephemeral concept

Director treats each jail as ephemeral. This does not mean that your jails will not persist after you stop them or restart your system, what it means is that Director assumes that it is safe to destroy the jails since you have clearly separated the data that should be persisted from the data considered ephemeral.

Configuration file

Read more details in appjail-director --help about which configuration files are used and how they are loaded.

logs

directory

type: String.

default: ~/.director/logs.

description: Directory where the logs will be stored.

projects

directory

type: String.

default: ~/.director/projects.

description: Directory where the projects and its metadata will be stored.

jails

remove_recursive

type: Boolean.

default: false.

description: Only valid for ZFS. Recursively removes the jail and its references.

remove_force

type: Boolean.

default: true.

description: Only valid for ZFS. Forcibly removes the jail dataset.

commands

timeout

type: Integer.

default: 1800.

description: Timeout to avoid hangings caused by some operations such as the execution of Makejail or some custom commands in your Director file.

Environment

You can use environment variables within the Director file:

options:
  - virtualnet: ':<random> default'
  - nat:
services:
  web:
    makejail: Makejail
    options:
      - expose: 5000
    volumes:
      - appdata: /app/data
  mariadb:
    makejail: gh+AppJail-makejails/mariadb
    arguments:
      - mariadb_user: !ENV '${DB_USER}'
      - mariadb_password: !ENV '${DB_PASS}'
      - mariadb_database: !ENV '${DB_NAME:appdb}'
      - mariadb_root_password: !ENV '${DB_ROOT_PASS}'
volumes:
  appdata:
    device: ./appdata

Instead of setting each environment variable from the command line, you can use a .env file:

.env:

DIRECTOR_PROJECT=myapp
DB_USER=example-user
DB_PASS=my_cool_secret
DB_NAME=appdb
DB_ROOT_PASS=my-secret-pw

Specification

options

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string. The value can be left empty.

description: Options that will be used by all services.

services (required)

type: Dictionary.

description: This dictionary contains the services to be created and started. Each key is the name of the service that must be valid with the following regular expression: ^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$. The name of the service is not the same as the name of the jail.

priority

type: Integer.

default: 99.

description: Once the Director file has been processed, the services will be sorted using this number. Lower integers have higher priority, so those services will be processed first.

name

type: String.

description: Jail name. If not specified, a random hexadecimal string will be used.

makejail

type: String.

default: Makejail

description: Makejail to be executed.

reset_options

type: Boolean.

description: The global options will be added to the local options. These options only take into account the local options per service.

ignore_mtime

type: Boolean.

description: Do not recreate the service when the Makejail modification time changes.

options

It has the same effect as the global options, but only for the services in which it appears.

arguments

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string.

description: Arguments to pass to the Makejail to be executed.

environment

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string. The value can be left empty.

description: Environment variables valid only in the build stage.

start-environment

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string. The value can be left empty.

description: Environment variables valid only in the start stage.

volumes

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string.

description: The key of each dictionary is used to obtain the volume options specified by the global volumes.

scripts

type: Array of dictionaries.

description: Scripts that will be executed once the jail is created and started.

shell

type: String.

default: /bin/sh -c

description: Shell used to execute the script.

type

type: String.

default: jexec

options: jexec, local and chroot.

description: In which environment the script will be executed.

text (required)

type: String.

description: Script to be executed.

start

type: Array of dictionaries. Each dictionary (key and value) is a string.

description: Arguments to be passed to the start stage.

serial

type: Integer.

default: 0.

description: Director detects changes to re-run the Makejail, this item forces the execution of the Makejail.

default_volume_type

type: String.

description: Default volume type when type is not defined in volumes/{volume}.

volumes

type: Dictionary.

description: Describe the volume options used by the services.

device

type: String.

description: Device to be mounted.

type

type: String.

default: <pseudofs>.

description: Type of the file system. When using nullfs, <pseudofs> or <volumefs>, device is treated as a directory and after getting the absolute path it will be used as the actual device.

See AppJail#pseudofs for more details about the pseudo-filesystem.

options

type: String.

default: rw.

description: Mount point options associated with the file system.

dump

type: Integer.

default: 0.

description: It is used for these file systems by the dump(8) command to determine which file systems need to be dumped.

pass

type: Integer.

default: 0.

description: It is used by the fsck(8) and quotacheck(8) programs to determine the order in which file system and quota checks are done at reboot time.

umask

type: Integer.

description: Valid only for nullfs, <pseudofs> and <volumefs> file systems. When defined the umask is set before the creation of the directory (aka device) and is restored after the directory is created.

mode

type: Integer.

description: Valid only for nullfs, <pseudofs> and <volumefs> file systems. Change the access permissions of the directory (aka device) after its creation.

owner

type: Integer or String.

description: Valid only for nullfs, <pseudofs> and <volumefs> file systems. When defined the directory owner is set after the creation of the directory (aka device). Note that if you use a string instead of an integer, it will be resolved from your local user database.

group

It has the same effect as owner, but for the device group.

Notes

Contributing

If you have found a bug, have an idea or need help, use the issue tracker. Of course, PRs are welcome.