ArchLinux repository server with embedded AWS S3 back-end

This is a logical extension of the cross-dev/arch-repo-server. It embeds s3fs-fuse application to provide S3 bucket access through a FUSE mountpoint.

Word of warning

NB! It appears like a commodity kernel from Ubuntu 14.04 (e.g. 3.13.0) has some issues in the FUSE module, so mounting really does not work inside the container. It fails with the following message:

fuse: mount failed: Permission denied

Adding --privileged flag helps, but that is probably not what you would want to do. Not even --cap-add all.

In the other machine, where it works, there is a kernel 4.0.5 and devicemapper storage driver in use. It is not evident what is the key part to fix it.

An s3fs mount can be created in the host side and mapped as volume into crossdev/arch-repo-server container.

Install

Have Docker installed and run:

$ docker pull crossdev/arch-repo-server-s3

The image inherits from crossdev/arch-repo-server and its build will automatically trigger once the ancestor is built successfully.

Use

The image has a handful of parameters to configure before it can do anything useful for you. Here is an example command line:

$ docker run -d \
    -p 8000:41268 \
    --env-file=/etc/arch-repo-server.conf \
    --cap-add mknod --cap-add sys_admin --device=/dev/fuse \
    crossdev/arch-repo-server-s3

Now, lets explain each of these intriguing bits:

• --env-file=/etc/arch-repo-server.conf - this file configures some sensitive environment variables (see below)
• --cap-add ... --device - this is necessary to make FUSE mounting succeed inside a container, --privileged is an unsafe shorthand (avoid it)

Configuration file

The format of the file is as follows:

S3_BUCKET=bucket
S3_ACCESS=Access
S3_SECRET=Secret

, where

• S3_BUCKET - name of the target S3 bucket
• S3_ACCESS - AWS access key
• S3_SECRET - AWS secret key

Make sure the file can not be read by someone who should not read it.