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amazon-web-servicesdockeramazon-ec2docker-composesystemd

Launch docker automatically when starting ec2 server


Everytime I restart my ec2 server I have to do: sudo systemctl start docker and then docker-compose up -d to launch all my containers.
Would there be a way to automatically run these two commands at the start of the instance? I have read this answer and I think ideally I would like to know how to do that:

Create a systemd service and enable it. All the enabled systems services will be started on powering.

Do you know how to create such systemd service?

[EDIT 1]: Following Chris William's comment, here is what I have done:

Thanks Chris, so I created a docker_boot.service with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=docker boot
After=docker.service

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=1
User=ec2-user
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I created it in /etc/systemd/system folder

I then did:

sudo systemctl enable docker
sudo systemctl enable docker_boot

When I turn on the server, the only Docker images that are running are certbot/certbot and telethonkids/shinyproxy
Please find below the content of my docker-compose.yml file.
Do you see what is missing so that all images are up and running?

version: "3.5"
services:
  rstudio:
    environment:
      - USER=username
      - PASSWORD=password
    image: "rocker/tidyverse:latest"
    build:
     context: ./Docker_RStudio
     dockerfile: Dockerfile
    volumes:
      - /home/ec2-user/R_and_Jupyter_scripts:/home/maxence/R_and_Jupyter_scripts
    working_dir: /home/ec2-user/R_and_Jupyter_scripts
    container_name: rstudio
    ports:
      - 8787:8787

  jupyter:
    image: 'jupyter/datascience-notebook:latest'
    ports:
      - 8888:8888
    volumes:
     - /home/ec2-user/R_and_Jupyter_scripts:/home/joyvan/R_and_Jupyter_scripts
    working_dir: /home/joyvan/R_and_Jupyter_scripts
    container_name: jupyter

  shiny:
    image: "rocker/shiny:latest"
    build:
     context: ./Docker_Shiny
     dockerfile: Dockerfile
    container_name: shiny
    ports:
     - 3838:3838

  nginx:
    image: nginx:alpine
    container_name: nginx
    restart: on-failure
    networks:
     - net
    volumes:
     - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
     - ./data/certbot/conf:/etc/letsencrypt
     - ./data/certbot/www:/var/www/certbot
    ports:
     - 80:80
     - 443:443
    command: "/bin/sh -c 'while :; do sleep 6h & wait $${!}; nginx -s reload; done & nginx -g \"daemon off;\"'"
    depends_on:
     - shinyproxy

  certbot:
    image: certbot/certbot
    container_name: certbot
    restart: on-failure
    volumes:
     - ./data/certbot/conf:/etc/letsencrypt
     - ./data/certbot/www:/var/www/certbot
    entrypoint: "/bin/sh -c 'trap exit TERM; while :; do certbot renew; sleep 12h & wait $${!}; done;'"

  shinyproxy:
      image: telethonkids/shinyproxy
      container_name: shinyproxy
      restart: on-failure
      networks:
       - net
      volumes:
       - ./application.yml:/opt/shinyproxy/application.yml
       - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      expose:
        - 8080

  cron:
   build:
     context: ./cron
     dockerfile: Dockerfile
   container_name: cron
   volumes:
     - ./Docker_Shiny/app:/home
   networks:
     - net

networks:
 net:
   name: net

Solution

  • Using Amazon Linux 2 I tried to replicate the issue. Obviously, I don't have all the dependencies to run your exact docker-compose.yml, thus I used the docker-compose.yml from here for my verification. The file setups wordpress with mysql .

    Steps I took were following (executed as ec2-user in home folder):

    1. Install docker

    sudo yum update -y  
    sudo yum install -y docker
    sudo systemctl enable docker
    sudo systemctl start docker
    

    2. Install docker-compose

    sudo curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/latest/download/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m) -o /usr/bin/docker-compose
    
    sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/docker-compose
    

    3. Create docker-compose.yml

    mkdir myapp 
    

    Create file ./myapp/docker-compose.yml:

    version: '3.3'
    
    services:
       db:
         image: mysql:5.7
         volumes:
           - db_data:/var/lib/mysql
         restart: always
         environment:
           MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: somewordpress
           MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
           MYSQL_USER: wordpress
           MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress
    
       wordpress:
         depends_on:
           - db
         image: wordpress:latest
         ports:
           - "8000:80"
         restart: always
         environment:
           WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
           WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
           WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
           WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
    volumes:
        db_data: {}
    

    4. Create docker_boot.service

    The file is different then yours, as there were few potential issues in your file:

    • not using absolute paths
    • ec2-user may have no permissions to run docker

    Create file ./myapp/docker_boot.service:

    [Unit]
    Description=docker boot
    After=docker.service
    
    [Service]
    Type=oneshot
    RemainAfterExit=yes
    WorkingDirectory=/home/ec2-user/myapp
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker-compose -f /home/ec2-user/myapp/docker-compose.yml up -d --remove-orphans
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    

    5. Copy docker_boot.service to systemd

    sudo cp -v ./myapp/docker_boot.service /etc/systemd/system
    

    6. Enable and start docker_boot.service

    sudo systemctl enable docker_boot.service
    sudo systemctl start docker_boot.service
    

    Note: First start may take some time, as it will pull all docker images required. Alternatively start docker-compose manually first to avoid this.

    7. Check status of the docker_boot.service

    sudo systemctl status docker_boot.service
    

    8. Check if the wordpress is up

    curl -L localhost:8000
    

    9. Reboot

    Check if the docker_boot.service is running after instance reboot by logging in into the instance and using sudo systemctl status docker_boot.service and/or curl -L localhost:8000.