I am wanting to automate some homelab things. Specifically deploying new and updating existing docker containers.

I would like to publish my entire docker compose stacks (minus env vars) onto a public Git repo, and then using something to select a specific compose from that, on a specific branch (so I can have a physical seperate server for testing) automatically deploy a container.

I thought of Jenkins, as it is quite flexable, and I am very willing to code it together, but are there any tools like this that I should look into instead? I’ve heard Ansible is not ideal for docker compose.

  • moonpiedumplings@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    9 days ago

    I’m gonna be real: You want kubernetes + gitops (either fluxcd or argocd or the rancher one).

    I mean sure, jenkins works, but nothing is going to be as smooth as kubernetes. I originally attempted to use ansible as many people suggested, but I got frustrated becuase it struggled to manage state in a truly declarative way (e.g. when I would change the ports in the ansible files the podman containers wouldn’t update, I had to add tasks for destroying and recreating the containers).

    I eventually just switched to kubernetes + fluxcd. I push to the git repo. The state of the kubernetes cluster changes according. Beautiful. Simple. Encrypted secrets via sops. It supports the helm package manager as well. Complex af to set up though. But it’s a huge time saver in the long run, which is why so many companies use it.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
        02·
        12 days ago

        People are naming them all over this thread. Use the right tool for the right job, don’t try to shoehorn a function for a dead-ass and dying tool into a different use-case just because you know it.

  • damnthefilibuster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    You wanna know a fun way to do this?

    GitHub (and I think Gitlab too) supports you running their runner within your own infra. It’s literally a binary that needs permissions and space. Then, you can tell your git repo to use that runner to run docker compose and as part of the “build” process, deploy you container to the same or an in-network machine.

    This is not secure, it’s probably going to involve a lot of hard coding of local IPs or server names etc. But you can make it work.

    I use this way to get a Win11 PC to run some regular containers on itself. Works like a charm.

    • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      I did this and the fun thing about it is that your runner can access things inside your network that a regular GitLab runner can’t. I’ve used it to manage a k8s cluster that isn’t exposed to the Internet at all.