How to customize the docker run command on Elastic

Question

Here's the thing, I need to tell Docker to not containerize the container’s networking, because it needs to connect to a MongoDB that is inside a VPN (enterprise private DB).

There is a Docker command that let's me do exactly that: --net=host. Reference here.

So, for example, when running the container on my local machine, I will do something like:

docker run --rm -it --net=host [image-name]:[version] bash -il

And that command will do the trick. Thanks to that, I can connect to the "private" MongoDB.

So, my question is: Is there a way customize the docker run command of a Single Docker Environment on Elastic Beanstalk so I can add the --net=host?

I have tried using the container_commands into the config.yml file to add that instruction there, but I don't think that does what I need, here is a snippet:

container_commands:
  00-test_command:
    command: bundle exec thin --net=host
  01-networking-fix:
    command: "docker run --rm -it --net=host [image-name]:[version] bash -il"

Answer 1

Note that the latest version of the AWS stack (with Docker 1.7.1) has a slightly different pre-deploy setup. You'll need to update the file at the location: /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh

commands:
    00001_add_privileged:
         cwd: /tmp
         command: 'sed -i "s/docker run -d/docker run --privileged -d/" /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh'

or, for example, if you want to pass args to your Docker image:

commands:
    00001_modify_docker_run:
        cwd: /tmp
        command: 'sed -i "s/\$EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_IMAGE_STAGING/\$EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_IMAGE_STAGING -gzip -enable-url-source/" /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh'

Answer 2

I ended up fixing it with two container commands

container_commands:
  00_fix_networking:
    command: sed -i 's/docker run -d/docker run --net=host -d/' /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh
  01_fix_docker_ip:
    command: sed -i 's/server $EB_CONFIG_NGINX_UPSTREAM_IP/server localhost/' /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/01flip.sh

Update: I also had to fix the Upstart script. Unfortunately, I didn't write down what I did because I didn't end up needing to alter the docker run command. You would do a files directive for (I think) /etc/init/docker. AWS edits the Nginx configuration in the same manner as in 01flip.sh in that file as well.

---

Explanation:

In the 64bit Amazon Linux 2015.03 v2.0.2 running Docker 1.7.1 platform version, the file you need to edit is /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh. This file is now far more complex than Samar's version so I didn't want to put the actual contents in there. However, the change is basically the same. There's the line that starts with

docker run -d

I fixed it with a container command:

container_commands:
  00_fix_networking:
    command: sed -i 's/docker run -d/docker run --net=host -d/' /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/00run.sh

This successfully adds the --net=host argument but now there's another problem. The system ends up with an invalid Nginx directive. Using --net=host means that when you run docker inspect <container id> there is no IP address in the NetworkSettings. AWS uses this to create the server directive for Nginx and ends up generating server :<some port you chose> (before adding --net=host it would look like server <ip>:<port>). I needed to patch that file, too. It's generated in /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/01flip.sh.

01_fix_docker_ip:
  command: sed -i 's/server $EB_CONFIG_NGINX_UPSTREAM_IP/server localhost/' /opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/enact/01flip.sh

Answer 3

While elastic beanstalk is generally well suited for applications that work with standard set of configurations, its difficult to customize and keep things updated along with the updates AWS provides to EB stacks. Having said that, I've done something like below which is a bit hacky but works fine.

files:
    "/opt/elasticbeanstalk/hooks/appdeploy/pre/04run.sh":
      mode: "000755"
      owner: root
      group: root
      encoding: plain
      content: |
        #script content of original 04run.sh along with modification on docker run cmd
        # eg. I injected multi-ports here
        docker run -d \
               "${EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_ENV_ARGS[@]}" \
               "${EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_VOLUME_MOUNTS[@]}" \
               "${EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_ENTRYPOINT_ARGS[@]}" \
               "${PORT_ARGS[@]}" \
               $EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_IMAGE_STAGING \
               "${EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_COMMAND_ARGS[@]}" 2>&1 | tee /tmp/docker_run.log | tee $EB_CONFIG_DOCKER_STAGING_APP_FILE

This is not very neat, at least I have to make sure that it does not break with updates on elastic beanstalk. The above one is for docker 1.5 stack but you can do something similar with the version you're running.