Dusty Architecture

Client / Daemon Structure

  • Dusty uses a client/daemon structure.
  • The daemon (dusty -d) runs with root permissions to modify the hosts file (/etc/hosts). By default, the daemon runs automatically via a plist and launchd.
  • A client sends the daemon commands over a Unix socket, which defaults to /var/run/dusty/dusty.sock. The path to this socket may be customized by setting the DUSTY_SOCKET_PATH environment variable for both the daemon and the client.

System Components

Dusty leverages several programs and system components:

Overview

Dusty has both a compile and a run step when executing its main command (dusty up). The compile step uses the Dusty specs to do the following:

  • Produce /etc/hosts file mappings
  • Add mappings in an nginx config
  • Stitch together a docker-compose.yml file

During the run step Dusty does the following:

  • Ensures that the Docker VM (Linux) is running
  • Uses NFS to mount repos on your local machine to the VM
  • Uses Docker Compose to launch your apps and services

Architecture

Hosts File

Your hosts file (/etc/hosts) is modified by Dusty so that you can use Dusty-specified local host names. An example addition to your hostfile:

# BEGIN section for Dusty
192.168.1.5 local.example-app.com
# END section for Dusty

This points local.example-app.com to your Docker VM, where the request is then handled by the containerized nginx which Dusty manages inside the VM.

nginx

Dusty runs a containerized nginx which is used to route requests from your Docker VM to the appropriate application container. The config for this nginx instance is stored at /persist/dustyNginx/dustyNginx.conf inside the Docker VM.

An example dustyNginx.conf is:

http {
     server {
         client_max_body_size 500M;
         listen 80;
         server_name local.example-app.com;
         location / {
             proxy_pass http://172.17.42.1:65000;
         }
     }
}

Docker Virtual Machine

Docker can be used on OSX via the Docker Machine virtual machine (created using VirtualBox). The Docker containers and Docker daemon are actually running on this Linux virtual machine. The Docker client is run on OS X locally and sends commands through to the Docker daemon's exposed socket.

NFS

Containers started by Dusty need to access code living on your Mac. One way to do this is to use a Virtualbox shared folder. However, the performance of shared folders is very poor. As an alternative, we use NFS to allow your host and VM to access the same folders.

In our NFS setup, your host Mac acts as a server, and the Docker VM acts as a client. The server makes available folders which need to be shared (folders containing both managed and overridden repositories). The client VM can then mount these folders as needed, and can even setup container volumes to mount from these folders.

With this setup, code changes you make on your Mac are reflected quickly and automatically in containers. This is similar to, but more performant than Virtualbox shared folders.

Persistent Data

Dusty stores persistent data in the /persist folder on the Docker VM, which is symlinked to the Docker VM's persistent virtual disk. All data in this location will survive stops and restarts of the VM.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose is a tool for defining and runnning multi-container applications with Docker. It's used to specify Docker entrypoints, volumes, linked containers, and more. By using Docker Compose, specifically linked containers, Dusty apps can talk to other apps and services by using their names as hostnames.

Docker Compose can set many other Docker options as well. For example, Dusty uses it to forward the temporary port specified in nginx to an in-container port specified in Dusty specs.