Building the container image

The current Dockerfile is based on a CentOS 6 image, downloads JDK 8, clone the Apache Geode git repository, starts a build and execute the basic tests.

docker build -t apachegeode/geode .

This may take a while depending on your internet connection, but it's worth since this is a one time step and you endup with a container that is tested and ready to be used for development. It will download Gradle and as part of the build, project dependencies as well.

Starting a locator and gfsh

1. Then you can start gfsh as well in order to perform more commands:

docker run -it -p 10334:10334 -p 7575:7575 -p 1099:1099  apachegeode/geode gfsh

From this point you can pretty much follow Apache Geode in 5 minutes for example:

start server --name=server1

But in order to have real fun with containers you are probably better off using something like docker-compose or kubernetes. Those examples will come next.

Creating a cluster using multiple containers

Install docker-compose following the instructions on this link and move into the composer directory.

There is a docker-compose.yml example file there with a locator and a server. To start the cluster execute:

docker-compose up

Or in order to start it in background:

docker-compose up -d

Do a docker ps and identify the container ID for the locator. Now you can use gfsh on this container and connect to the distributed system:

docker exec -it <locator_container_id> gfsh
gfsh>connect --locator=locator[10334]
Connecting to Locator at [host=locator, port=10334] ..
Connecting to Manager at [host=192.168.99.100, port=1099] ..
Successfully connected to: [host=192.168.99.100, port=1099]

gfsh>list members
    Name     | Id
    ------------ | --------------------------------------
    locator      | locator(locator:33:locator)<v0>:1351
    6e96cc0f6b72 | 172.17.1.92(6e96cc0f6b72:34)<v1>:28140

Type exit and now to scale the cluster you can leverage docker-compose scale command. For example:

docker-compose scale server=3

This will start 2 extra Geode server containers. You can verify this step by repeating the last GFSH step and listing the members.