Docketeer 5.0 is here! You’re WHALEcome!
Developers are being faced with ever- increasing pressure to build, modify, test and deploy highly distributed applications at a high cadence. Docker is a framework that looks to simplify and streamline this process by allowing developers to work in standardized environments using local containers which permit your applications to run seamlessly on a multitude of environments without having to hear those dreaded words, “but it works on my machine”. Docker is lightweight and extremely fast, providing a viable cost-effective alternative to clunky virtual machines, so you can use more of your computing power to achieve your business goals. With Docker gaining steam in popularity, we wanted to help developers better visualize their container’s health and metrics as well as be able to clearly communicate with members of their team about container health via Slack. Additionally Docketeer 5.0 added a feature that tracks volume history allowing container data to persist. Before we go into Docketeer 5.0, let’s talk about the previous iterations of Docketeer.
In 2020 Open Source Labs introduced an open source GUI that focused on managing and visualizing Docker containers and images, and with every version came new and exciting updates and features. In version 2.0, Docketer introduced an easy to read container health monitoring metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, net I/O, and block I/O. In addition, V2.0 brought about the new Docker-Compose tab that provides a seamless user-interface for uploading docker-compose-yaml files to build multi-container applications. The developers also added in a new images tab. Within the tab, users can import images from Dockerhub simply by providing their repository and repository version in the text field.
In Docketeer V3.0, the team decided to enhance customizability and reliability. With V3.0, user roles were introduced. The system admin is given the ability to grant users/admins the ability to have access to different features such as- running and stopping containers. Moreover, admins can now set the CPU and Memory Notification thresholds, allowing them to better monitor their container’s health.
With Docketeer V4.0, came stronger security and more metrics. Docketeer enhanced their existing securities through the use of bcrypt. In doing so, they created a more robust system that is less inclined to fall to brute force or rainbow table attacks. Moreover, Docketeer fabricated even greater security by implementing a unique token for system admins at each login. This unique hash token is required for any functionalities that are exclusive to system admins. Prior to V4.0, normal users would be able to use 3rd party software to bypass the server and obtain valuable information. In addition to security, V4.0 introduced two new metric displays: READ and WRITTEN IO Bytes. Block IO represents the amount of Bytes written/read from the user’s container to the disk. This is a valuable implementation because block size can impact the processing magnitude required on servers, networks, and various environments.
Docker 5.0 utilizes a Slack Web-Hook to send custom messages on container health to individual members of a development team. With large scale applications, it is extremely important that members of the DevOps team are continually updated on the conditions of containers and monitoring important metrics like CPU and Memory thresholds. By leveraging Slack’s already proven and rock solid platform that does incredible things for team management, Docketeer is now ready to be a full fledged enterprise scale application.
In addition, Docketeer 5.0 has introduced a volume history tab to the GUI for users to have access to all information related to past and current volumes. For a brief overview, volumes are mounted to containers in order to persist data after a container’s lifecycle has ended. To make this information more readable and available to Docketeer users, we have added a way to visualize the information with easy to understand graphics that hold the information associated with the volume, such as container names, state, and status of the volume. With this new feature included, Docketeer 5.0 has integrated an executable command line that makes the overall application more comprehensive and beneficial to Docker fans. Lastly, Docketeer 5.0 has set up Typescript for all future iterations. With Typescript implemented, there will be a strict syntactical aspect to the code which will add an extra layer of error handling.
Checkout Docketeer on GitHub!
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