development.md

Build images from development code

Using Dockerfile.local, you can build images based on a local checkout of a development branch. The Dockerfile will cache the dependencies across rebuilds, so that changing the code and rebuilding the cBioPortal stack doesn't waste time fetching everything unless the dependencies or project structure change.

To use this functionality, copy the following files into your source folder and build an image based on that folder and Dockerfile.local:

cp Dockerfile.local *.properties *.patch ~/git/cbioportal
cp dockerignore ~/git/cbioportal/.dockerignore
cd ~/git/cbioportal
docker build -f Dockerfile.local -t cbioportal:my-local-source-dir .

And then, whenever you've changed the source code (or configuration), you can build a new image by re-running the build command. This will not automatically remove the old image; use docker image ls and docker image rm if you no longer need it.

Override deployed files

Images built based on Dockerfile.local allow you to override deployed web app files in place, by mounting volumes inside /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/cbioportal/. For instance, run a container such as the following to test a production build of the frontend project:

cd ~/git/cbioportal-frontend
npm install && npm run build
docker run --rm \
  --name=cbioportal-container \
  --net=cbio-net \
  -v "$PWD/dist/reactapp:/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/cbioportal/reactapp:ro" \
  -e CATALINA_OPTS='-Xms2g -Xmx4g' \
  -p 8081:8080 \
  cbioportal:my-local-source-dir

PS -- when testing integration of the frontend project in production context like this, run

NODE_ENV=production ./node_modules/.bin/webpack --watch

to continuously reflect changes to the frontend source.