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Simplifying Docker Interactions with BASH Aliases
Docker has been consuming my life in the last few weeks. I have half a dozen projects in progress that use containers in some fashion, including my
Visualizing MySQL's Performance Schema project. Since I prefer to work from a Mac laptop, I have to utilize a Linux Virtual Machine (VM) which runs the Docker daemon. Luckily,
Docker Machine makes this a very simple process. However, interacting both with Docker and Docker Machine does introduce some additional commands that I would rather simplify for the repeatable use-cases I've come across. With BASH aliases, this is not a problem.
Is My Docker Environment Setup?
When working with Docker through Docker Machine, you first have to set up your environment with various DOCKER_* variables, such as these: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-docker-env-out The first alias is an easy way to check that the Docker environment is setup. https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-de_alias-sh Now, all I have to type is
de, and I get the Docker environment output: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-de-out
Setting up My Docker Environment
But how do you set up the environment with Docker Machine? The
docker-machine command provides the details: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-docker_machine_env-out Notice that the comments indicate you have to run the command through eval to get the terminal setup correctly. I don't want to type that out each time I open a new terminal. The
docker-machine command requires the name of the VM to set up as an argument, so I've created a function to accept the argument: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-dm-env_alias-sh Each time I open a terminal I can setup the environment: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-dm-env-out If you only use one Docker VM for local development, you can hardcode the name of it to execute the command to automatically setup the docker environment when a new terminal is created.
Cleaning Out Docker Images
The last helpful alias I have comes from building and re-building containers that have left old images on my VM. https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-dangling_images-out The
docker-clean command cleans up all dangling images: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-docker-clean_alias-sh And running the
docker-clean command yields: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-docker-clean-out I put all of these aliases and functions together in my ~/.bash_profile* script, which is executed anytime I open a terminal window: https://gist.github.com/dtest/9d23ae5f539f0a37db44#file-aliases-sh *Note: Instead of putting these aliases and functions in ~/.bash_profile, other distributions would look for them in ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_aliases to ensure they are available for all types of interactive shells. If you have any other commands to simplify Docker interactions, please share them in the comments!
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