[GTALUG] Linux container options on Windows

[Clifford Ilkay]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 1:52 PM, Alex Beamish via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> The technical challenge I'm trying to solve is to provide an off-line
> version of an API that runs on a laptop. This API would be primed with the
> appropriate data set from the cloud, then would be used off-line during
> data entry. Data would only be added, not modified or deleted during that
> time. Once back on-line, the cloud would be updated with the new data.
>
> It looks like Docker has a technical solution that runs a Windows VM
> inside Windows, but what I'd love to have is a Linux VM running inside of
> Windows that would have a self-contained web server and database.
>
> I could probably implement this in a Windows container, but it would be so
> much easier to do in Linux.
>

 Hi Alex,

We do exactly what you are describing on a project I'm working on. We
deploy Debian Linux virtual machine images created using Packer that
contains our web application software stack. Our customers deploy those
images in Hyper-V, VMware ESXi 5.5, 6, or 6.5, or VirtualBox. On first
boot, the sysadmin uses a Django web application we include in the VM to
configure the VM. That Django application saves key/value pairs
representing things like networking information, database connection
credentials, and the version of our software they want to run. When the
Django form is saved, Django also creates a YAML file. That YAML file is
being monitored by inotifywait and when the change is detected, that kicks
off Salt to configure the virtual machine. Salt is in a masterless minion
configuration. We have PouchDB within the VM to store some data that must
be present when the VM is first started. The PouchDB database within the VM
synchronizes with a CouchDB database running on AWS. The CouchDB
synchronization protocol Just Works. It is eventually consistent and for
our use case, that is acceptable. Feel free to contact me off-list if you
have any questions.

Regards,

Clifford Ilkay

+1 647-778-8696
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