Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Docker

[Nick Foster]

I think it would be really helpful for the GNU Radio project to support a standard, basic gnuradio docker install with uhd and grc enabled as well as an example or two to demonstrate sane ways to run OOT modules on top of that image.  As Ben mentioned, Docker seems like a pretty energy-efficient way to approach support for systems like Windows and OSX going forward.  Not having used boot2docker personally, I won't say that it's necessarily time to retire the live usb image, but I think Docker may evolve quickly into a pretty obvious replacement, if it hasn't already.  I also appreciate GNU Radio looking for ways to support users and potential users attempting to build and deploy applications that reach beyond the immediate environment of GNU Radio and its core devs.  

As far as OOT modules, that's easy. For instance, a Dockerfile for gr-air-modes could look like this (this is untested, don't get any ideas):

FROM bistromath/gnuradio:3.7.8

MAINTAINER address@hidden version: 0.1

RUN apt-get install -y python-zmq

WORKDIR /opt/gr-air-modes

COPY . /opt/gr-air-modes

RUN    mkdir build \

    && cd build \

    && cmake ../ \

    && make -j4 \

    && make install

...that's more or less the whole thing, although this particular example is broken for a couple of reasons (no Qt in my base layer, other missing prerequisites). It might be nice to include a Dockerfile template in the OOT example. The nice part about doing OOT modules in this manner is that Gnuradio users could potentially never have to compile Gnuradio -- just write their OOT and base its Dockerfile upon a precompiled Gnuradio base layer. Another benefit is bitrot is all but eliminated, as you're basing your module on top of a versioned base layer rather than master.

 

One problem we have to face, though, is image size.  I'm trying to tackle that problem by compressing the install for transactions over the wire and then uncompressing locally for applications (using pybombs2, of course).  This is all a little awkward for docker distribution, but lots of things in docker are a little awkward.  Developers could build on top by untarring the prefix, pybombs installing extra recipes (possibly custom recipes) and then using the deploy command again, all within the same Docker "RUN" section.  Locally, if you docker build applications beginning with the same commands to untar the image, then all applications can take advantage of that layer (you'll have to untar the base image only one time regardless of how many applications use the base image).  Alternatively, you can docker run with cmd or entry set to untar the image (and then, presumably, you'll want to commit the running container locally so you don't have to untar again).  

 

Does anyone have a better idea for bringing image size down without making it impossible to build and deploy OOTs?  Those Bistromath images are pretty tiny... I haven't really looked into the Alpine base image, either. 

The Docker image I put up on Docker Hub is small-ish because it only includes these components (and their prerequisites):

--   * python-support

--   * testing-support

--   * volk

--   * gnuradio-runtime

--   * gr-blocks

--   * gnuradio-companion

--   * gr-fft

--   * gr-filter

--   * gr-analog

--   * gr-digital

--   * gr-channels

--   * gr-uhd

--   * gr-utils

--   * gr-wxgui

It could be a lot smaller if I removed the GR build files (292MB), GR source files (88MB), and UHD source/build (200MB). That would cut it down to somewhat more than half its current size. I like having them there because if I'm working inside the environment I can compile changes incrementally. For a pure deployment system, though, they're unnecessary.

It's possible, albeit messy, to build a Gnuradio distribution in layers and tag the individual layers separately. Because each command in a Dockerfile produces an incremental UFS layer, if you can break the compilation of Gnuradio into separate commands for each component in the Dockerfile, then you can tag the various incremental layers to build different composite Gnuradio distributions. It's probably simpler just to provide a "bells-'n-whistles" version and a "bare bones" version.

If you like, I can see just how small I can reasonably get things. I'd argue, though, that a one-time, couple-of-GB download is a reasonable compromise for the convenience of versioned distribution in all but niche applications (embedded or offline come to mind). In other words, the benefit of getting the wire size down probably doesn't outweigh the effort for most people.

--n

 

_______________________________________________
Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
address@hidden
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio

_______________________________________________
Discuss-gnuradio mailing list
address@hidden
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnuradio