For users interested in using Docker with LabKey Server, we offer an installer that utilizes Spring Boot's "Embedded Tomcat." This installer is offered as a Beta and is meant for use with
our Dockerfile repo.
You'll find more guidance here:
Background: In an effort to mitigate the challenges of managing the underlying dependencies and to minimize the complexity of configuring new LabKey installations, LabKey has begun the process of migrating to embedded Tomcat. Switching to an embedded Tomcat distribution method allows us to centralize many configuration parameters into an application.properties file, define recommended defaults, and to package and ship Tomcat with the application.
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Prerequisites
- Docker: v20.10.9 (or greater) recommended
- docker-compose: v1.29.2 (or greater) recommended
- GNU Make
- GNU Awk
Optional, but not required:
- AWS CLI - used to publish containers to AWS ECR service.
Obtain the Embedded Tomcat Jar File
Clone the DockerFile repository to a local directory on your docker equipped machine:
git clone https://github.com/LabKey/Dockerfile.git
Register to download the distribution here:
Build the LabKey Embedded Docker Container
Once you have the .jar file in your local Dockerfile repo, follow these steps:
1. Export the minimal required environment variables or edit and source the quickstart_envs.sh
cd ./Dockerfile/
export LABKEY_VERSION="21.9.0"
export LABKEY_CREATE_INITIAL_USER=""
export LABKEY_CREATE_INITIAL_USER_APIKEY="" ...
or
source ./quickstart_envs.sh
2. Run the Make Build command to create the container
Since the make file supports other features such as publishing to AWS Elastic Container Registry, you may see some warning messages in the Docker build log regarding this if you do not have AWS credentials. These warning messages may be ignored.
Start the LabKey Embedded Docker Container
Once the container has been
built, follow these steps to start it:
1. Run the Make Up command to start the container using the makefile docker-compose settings
2. After a few minutes LabKey should be available by opening a browser window and connecting to:
Known Limitations and Considerations
- LabKey with Embedded Tomcat is currently experimental. Several features of LabKey Server will not work and need to be implemented via other Docker containers. For example: "R" and Python scripting engines.
- Other known limitations include: Full Text Search and connections to external databases will not work as on a traditional distribution.
- LabKey Application logs in the example container are redirected to the Docker Host console. This is accomplished via the example log4j2.xml configuration file. This allows consolidation of the logs to be consumed by an external service such as AWS Cloudwatch. In this configuration, the LabKey application and error logs are not viewable in the LabKey Admin Console.
Application Properties File
Configuring LabKey with Embedded Tomcat makes use of application properties. Both Spring Boot's default properties and LabKey specific ones are used. An example application.properties file is available here:
The Spring Boot properties are documented here:
LabKey-specific properties are documented here:
An example pg.properties file which contains some values referenced in application.properties is available here:
Reference
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