solution-soft / time-machine-dockerfiles

Dockerfiles for using Time Machine

Extending Time Machine Docker Image

With the release of docker images for Time Machine from SolutionSoft Systems, Inc., customers can easily

1. add applications to create new production images; or
2. integrate time machine into their existing application images

so that they can leverage the virtual clocks provided by Time Machine to facilitate time shift testings on the application.

This white paper will describe two approaches to enable virtual clocks for Wildfly/JBoss application. The first approach will add Wildfly/JBOSS application into the published Time Machine image. The second approach will add Time Machine capability into the official Wildfly/JBoss image.

Before we proceed with the approaches in details, we want to describe the mechanism for running Time Machine and other applications.

Mechanism for Running Time Machine

A Time Machine installation will have the following three components:

1. Commands to interact with the host Time Machine server to define the virtual clocks;
2. An agent daemon enables Time Machine Console to remotely define the virtual clocks in the container;
3. A license daemon which reserves license from the license server and release the license when the container will be stopped.

We have provided an /entrypoint.sh script to properly start all Time Machine components. There are primarily two steps:

1. When the container first starts, the script /entrypoint.sh will check for init scripts under directory /inittasks and run them one by one. Once they are run, directory /inittasks will be removed to prevent any possible duplicate init tasks.

   Examples of the init tasks can be creating directories, change permissions. one of the init task is to generate floating license token.

2. A supervisord suepr daemon is invoked to manage daemons such as Time Machine Agent and Time Machine License Daemon.

Extending Time Machine Image with Wildfly/JBoss

We took the following steps to add Wildfly/Jboss to the Time Machine docker image:

1. Create a jboss user and group to launch the Jboss application;
2. Install JDK and wildfly/jboss code into the image;
3. Add script to fix JBoss home directory permission; and
4. Add service script to start wildfly/jboss managed by supervisord super daemon

The first two tasks are handled in the Dockerfile as RUN commands. The last two are implemented as (1) inittask script; and (2) supervisord service script. You can find these scripts under the config/ directory.

For details, please refer to github repo at: https://github.com/solution-soft/time-machine-dockerfiles/tree/master/time-machine-adding-jboss

Adding Time Machine to Wildfly/JBoss Image

We took the following steps to add Time Machine into the official Wildfly/JBoss image.

1. Install python3.6 and supervisord packages. For Centos7, we need to eanble Software Collections Repository;

2. Grab and install Time Machine from URL: ftp://ftp.solution-soft.com/pub/tm/linux/redhat/64bit. The latest Time Machine release is V12.9R3;

3. Copy files under /config to directory / in docker.

   Files are:

   • start up scripts /entrypoint.sh,
   • init tasks under /inittask;
   • Time Machine license daemon under /usr/local/bin and
   • supervisord service script for (1) Time Machine Agent; (2) Time Machine License Daemon and (3) Wildfly/JBoss.

For dertails, please refer to github repo at: https://github.com/solution-soft/time-machine-dockerfiles/tree/master/jboss-adding-time-machine