Which directories to needs persistentent storage in container?

ikkeT

The issue

I'm learning Flarum, and I like it so much I created the simplest container for it and run it on podman and microshift kubernetes. I'd like to keep it the containerized way, so that I can always build and schedule new container including the installation. Then I'd need to know what files to keep after reschedule?

I fail to find this from the docs, please guide me if it exists, but what dynamic data do you need to keep? Container build always runs the composer install, so no need for extensions code and such. Nor cache -like things.

What should I have as Volumes for container to keep user data persistent?

Flarum information

I made container with both 2.0.0-beta3 and 1.8.1 tags. See Containerfile here

BR, ikke

ikkeT

I found this Dockerfile which lists the following volumes. Does it look like complete list?

VOLUME /etc/nginx/flarum /flarum/app/extensions /flarum/app/public/assets /flarum/app/storage/logs

luceos

The extensions directory you mentioned is really something specific for that docker configuration, if you use composer then you can leave that out.

It really depends on how you plan to host this. If you plan to run multiple pods with kubernetes then you will do a bit more.

Formatter cache

The biggest hurdle right now with scalable hosting for Flarum is the Formatter cache from s9e. This library, that manages the wysiwyg logic and it's addons/extensions, writes a php file to disk that Flarum must have. It is stored in storage/formatter. Unless you implement a custom solution, as I've done in our managed hosting, you will need to persist this directory to persistent storage.

Session cache

Sessions, in Flarum, are using Laravel's "file" mechanism. This means that logged in state is saved into the directory storage/sessions. Unless you implement your own logic, this directory is crucial if users are being switched from one pod to another.

Other storage

Other storage directories might be helpful to have, but honestly I wouldn't use the logs directory. Implement a custom error handler that logs to stderr conforming to the best practices of k8s.

ikkeT

Thanks, I'll give it a try. This is just a small env, likely having just one container. It's for our household for very low amount of discussion. More to keep track of record. I like the simplicity of Flarum, so I thought to give it a try. But it would need to keep docs store as well. I'll share the kubeconfig once the storage is set.

ikkeT

Hmmm, I took a look, and looks like storage dir is rather empty from files while creating new instance. Would it be the best just to create persistent volume for the whole storage and be done with it? As opposite to find individual dirs under storage? I'll try that.

Nothing under the public/ file tree? I see there is some assets/avatars, which is empty still but by the sounds of it might be something of user content?

luceos

ikkeT Would it be the best just to create persistent volume for the whole storage and be done with it

Yeah definitely an option.

ikkeT Nothing under the public/ file tree? I see there is some assets/avatars, which is empty still but by the sounds of it might be something of user content?

Everything under public/assets should be persisted too, you mentioned this earlier so didn't reiterate. There are usually two locations extensions store files, in public/assets for public publishing and in storage for storing files privately.

ikkeT

Just if someone is looking to do the same, I put my result into github. I ended up doing:

At build time, take a copy of storage and public/assets directories
At container start time check if the directories are empty due them being mapped to new volumes. If they are empty, restore the contents from the saved tgz.

I also added there reference kubernetes configs. This is not scale safe, it just works for replica count one. That's all I need at home. For scaling I would need to better know what files need to be shared and what not, and as newbie I don't. Then it could work using RWX storage (read/write many). But at that stage you probably want something that uses valkey/redis for states.

Thanks for the help, I continue my learning now 😃.

ikke-t/flarum-s2itree/1.x