How to deploy a Play 2.5 app on Jelastic with Docker?

Question

I would like to deploy an app written with Play Framework 2.5 on a Jelastic platform. I managed to use the Play2War plugin for Play but it doesn't support Play 2.5 yet.

The support of the platform recommended to use a Docker container or a VPS. I've never worked with Docker before. There is a SBT native packager plugin to provide a way to create automatically a Dockerfile with SBT. So here is my new plugins.sbt file:

// The Play plugin
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.play" % "sbt-plugin" % "2.5.11")

// Web plugins
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-coffeescript" % "1.0.0")
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-less" % "1.1.0")
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-jshint" % "1.0.3")
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-rjs" % "1.0.7")
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-digest" % "1.1.0")
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-mocha" % "1.1.0")
addSbtPlugin("org.irundaia.sbt" % "sbt-sassify" % "1.4.2")

// Play enhancer - this automatically generates getters/setters for public fields
// and rewrites accessors of these fields to use the getters/setters. Remove this
// plugin if you prefer not to have this feature, or disable on a per project
// basis using disablePlugins(PlayEnhancer) in your build.sbt
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-play-enhancer" % "1.1.0")

// Play Ebean support, to enable, uncomment this line, and enable in your build.sbt using
// enablePlugins(PlayEbean).
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-play-ebean" % "3.0.0")

// Play Eclipse plugin
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbteclipse" % "sbteclipse-plugin" % "4.0.0")

// Play native packager support for Docker
addSbtPlugin("com.typesafe.sbt" % "sbt-native-packager" % "1.2.0-M8")

And here is my build.sbt file with Docker settings based on some examples:

import com.typesafe.sbt.packager.docker._

name := """VestaWeb"""

version := "1.0-SNAPSHOT"

lazy val root = (project in file(".")).enablePlugins(PlayJava, PlayEbean, DockerPlugin)

scalaVersion := "2.11.7"

// Configure Docker settings
maintainer in Docker := "eeproperty"

dockerRepository := Some("eeproperty")
dockerBaseImage := "frolvlad/alpine-oraclejdk8:latest"
dockerCommands := dockerCommands.value.flatMap {
  case cmd@Cmd("FROM", _) => List(cmd, Cmd("RUN", "apk update && apk add bash"))
  case other => List(other)
}

// Add dependencies from Maven
libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
  filters,
  javaCore,
  javaJdbc,
  cache,
  javaWs,
  "mysql" % "mysql-connector-java" % "5.1.28",
  "com.stripe" % "stripe-java" % "2.10.0",
  "com.typesafe.play" %% "play-mailer" % "5.0.0",
  "it.innove" % "play2-pdf" % "1.5.1",
  "com.google.api-client" % "google-api-client" % "1.22.0",
  "org.apache.commons" % "commons-compress" % "1.12"
)

// Remove the documentation from the dist
sources in (Compile, doc) := Seq.empty
publishArtifact in (Compile, packageDoc) := false

// Disable strange behavior in local run
fork in run := false

The command:

activator docker:stage

produces this Dockerfile:

FROM frolvlad/alpine-oraclejdk8:latest
RUN apk update && apk add bash
MAINTAINER eeproperty
WORKDIR /opt/docker
ADD opt /opt
RUN ["chown", "-R", "daemon:daemon", "."]
USER daemon
ENTRYPOINT ["bin/vestaweb"]
CMD []

and a few other stuff like a docker/ folder.

The command:

activator docker:publish

publishes the Dockerfile (and maybe the other files???) to my Docker repository. I have no idea what Docker pushes to it and how it knows how to embbed the Play app in the Alpine Linux base image.

I added my repository to a Docker instance and Jelastic and I started it. I can log in to my root account via SSH but there is nothing related to my app in the container. Nothing appears when I try to open the Jelastic node in my browser.

Play Framework uses the port 9000 and Jelastic load from the port 80 by default. I guess I'll have to add an iptables command to my Dockerfile to redirect the trafic from 80 to 9000.

I've read a LOT of tutorials on "Dockerize a Play app" but they never explain how to deploy the app, only how to run the container locally with activator docker:publishLocal.

What point did I miss?

Answer 1

We have reproduced the issue with that docker. The docker works well at localhost but doesn't work well as Jelastic environment. The root cause is a bug JE-29972 (-nologin: this account is not available) when the user inside the docker has /sbin/nologin shell instead of /bin/bash.

As a workaround, we can suggest you change the /etc/passwd and replace daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin with daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/opt/docker:/bin/bash and restart your environment after the changes.

There is build.sbt file with Docker settings where the mentioned workaround is included:

import com.typesafe.sbt.packager.docker._

name := """test"""

version := "1.0-SNAPSHOT"

lazy val root = (project in file(".")).enablePlugins(PlayJava, DockerPlugin)

scalaVersion := "2.11.7"

// Configure Docker settings
maintainer in Docker := "eeproperty"

dockerExposedPorts := Seq(9000)
dockerRepository := Some("eeproperty")
dockerBaseImage := "frolvlad/alpine-oraclejdk8:latest"
dockerCommands := dockerCommands.value.flatMap {
  case cmd@Cmd("FROM", _) => List(cmd, Cmd("RUN", "apk update && apk --no-cache add bash shadow && usermod -s /bin/bash daemon && usermod -d /opt/docker/ daemon"))
  case other => List(other)
}

libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
  javaJdbc,
  cache,
  javaWs
)

sources in (Compile, doc) := Seq.empty
publishArtifact in (Compile, packageDoc) := false