France Université Numérique introduces an alternative Docker approach to
install a complete and customized version of Open edX.
The idea is to handcraft a Dockerfile, in order to make the project simpler,
more flexible and fully operable by developers.
If you're looking for a quick preview of OpenEdX Docker, you can take a look at our dedicated demo site.
It is connected back-to-back with a demo of Richie, a CMS for Open Education based on Django.
Two users are available for testing:
- admin:
[email protected]/admin - student:
[email protected]/edx
Richie's admin is available at https://demo.richie.education/admin/ and can be
accessed via the following user account: admin/admin.
The demonstration databases are regularly flushed.
This project builds a docker image that is ready for production.
At France Université Numérique, we are deploying Open edX Docker to OpenShift, for many customers and in multiple environments using Arnold:
- The Open edX settings were polished to unlock powerful configuration management features: sensible defaults, flexible overrides using YAML files and/or environment variables, secure credentials using Ansible Vault and PGP keys,
- We focused on a best practice installation of
edxapp, the core Open edX application. You can build you own image by adding specific Xblocks or Django apps in aDockerfileinheriting from this one (see https://github.com/openfun/fonzie for an example).
Docker compose is only used for development purposes so that we can code locally and see our changes immediately:
- sources and configuration files are mounted from the host,
- the Docker CMD launches Django's development server instead of
gunicorn, - ports are opened on the application containers to allow bypassing
nginx.
Docker compose also allows us to run a complete project in development, including database services which in production are not run on Docker. See the docker-compose file for details on each service:
- mysql: the SQL database used to structure and persist the application data,
- mongodb: the no-SQL database used to store course content,
- memcached: the cache engine,
- lms: the Django web application used by learners,
- cms: the Django web application used by teachers,
- nginx: the front end web server configured to serve static/media files and proxy other requests to Django.
- mailcatcher the email backend
Concerning Redis, it is possible to run a single redis instance (the default choice)
or to run redis with sentinel to simulate a HA instance.
To use Redis sentinel you have to set the REDIS_SERVICE environment variable
to redis-sentinel:
$ export REDIS_SERVICE=redis-sentinelTo switch back to the single redis instance, unset this environment variable:
$ unset REDIS_SERVICEMake sure you have a recent version of Docker and Docker Compose installed on your laptop:
$ docker -v
Docker version 26.0.0, build 2ae903e
$ docker compose version
docker compose version v2.24.5First, you need to choose a release/flavor of OpenEdx versions we support. You
can list them and get instructions about how to select/activate a target release
using the bin/activate script. An example output follows:
$ bin/activate
Select an available release to activate:
[1] master/0/bare (default)
[2] hawthorn/1/bare
[3] hawthorn/1/oee
Your choice: 3
# Copy/paste hawthorn/1/oee environment:
export EDX_RELEASE="hawthorn.1"
export FLAVOR="oee"
export EDX_RELEASE_REF="open-release/hawthorn.1"
export EDX_DEMO_RELEASE_REF="open-release/hawthorn.1"
# Or run the following command:
. ${HOME}/Work/openedx-docker/releases/hawthorn/1/oee/activate
# Check your environment with:
make infoOnce your environment is set, start the full project by running:
$ make bootstrapYou should now be able to view the web applications:
- LMS served by
nginxat: http://localhost:8073 - CMS served by
nginxat: http://localhost:8083
See other available commands by running:
$ make --helpIf you intend to work on edx-platform or its configuration, you'll need to compile static files in local directories that are mounted as docker volumes in the target container:
$ make dev-assetsNow you can start services development server via:
$ make devYou should be able to view the web applications:
- LMS served by Django's development server at: http://localhost:8072
- CMS served by Django's development server at: http://localhost:8082
To work on a particular theme, we invite you to use the paver watch_assets
command; e.g.:
$ make dev-watchTroubleshooting: if the command above raises the following error:
OSError: inotify watch limit reached
Then you will need to increase the host's fs.inotify.max_user_watches
kernel setting (for reference, see https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/13757):
# /etc/sysctl.conf (debian based)
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288The aim of this project is to prepare several flavors of images, the docker
files and settings of which are living in their own directory (see
releases/)
Release paths on the current repository are of the form:
{release name}/{release number}/{flavor}
With:
- release name: OpenEdx release name (e.g.
hawthorn) - release number: OpenEdx release number (e.g.
1) - flavor: the release flavor (e.g.
barefor standard OpenEdx release andoeefor OpenEdx Extended release).
We are pushing to DockerHub only images that are the result of a tag
respecting the following pattern:
{release}(-{flavor})-x.y.z
The release (e.g. hawthorn.1) typically includes the release name
(e.g. hawthorn) and the release number (e.g. 1). The flavor is
optional.
Here are some valid examples:
dogwood.3-1.0.3hawthorn.1-oee-2.0.1
This project also provides an nginx companion image that can be used
alongside the edxapp image for faster deployments and better performance.
The classical way to handle and serve static files in a Django application is
to collect them (using the collectstatic management command) and post-process
them using an appropriate storage back-end that uses cache-busting techniques
to avoid old versus new static files collisions (e.g.
ManifestStaticFilesStorage).
Depending on the edx-platform release, some files may not benefit from a
cache busting md5 hash, leading to unexpected side effects during deployment.
To prevent such behavior, for each new openedx-docker release, we will also
release an
edxapp-nginx
image with the same Docker tag. This image is an OpenShift-ready nginx
image with embedded
edxapp's static files. You are supposed to use this image to serve your
static files, media and reverse proxy to the version-matching edxapp instance.
If what you're looking for is a quick 1-click installation of the complete Open edX stack, you may take a look at Tutor.
The code in this repository is licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0 terms unless otherwise noted.
Please see LICENSE for details.
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