The Current State of Compose Services

Using Gen3
1

Hello! Over the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to use Compose Services get a commons up and running on my home desktop. However, this is my first experience with some of the technology involved (e.g., Docker, Docker-Compose, OpenSSL), and I am running into some difficulties.

At the same time, this is my first real experience with open source software. After searching this forum for advice related to the difficulties mentioned above, I have gained the impression that there are some aspects of the Compose Services Github repository that (perhaps) should be updated. I would like to take this opportunity to (i) verify that this impression is correct and (ii) ask for an invitation to your Slack channel.

Here are the issues that I stumbled across, along with the potential solutions to these issues:

  • Postgres: When trying to use the Postgres microservice as outlined in the docker-compose.yml file, I encountered the following error: Database is uninitialized and superuser password is not specified. This can be solved by adding an environment variable to the Postgres service in the docker-compose.yml file, as mentioned here.

  • Setting up a program: It appears as though the user.yaml file that gets generated by the creds_setup.sh script is not of the same format as the user.yaml file on the Fence Repo. In order to add a project a commons, we need to use the user.yaml file from the Fence Repo, as mentioned here.

  • OpenSSL: This issue was hinted at in the Compose Services repo. However I think it could be updated/clarified. The issue is that it is not sufficient to have OpenSSL installed on your computer. You need to have a version of OpenSSL that will generate the jwt_private_key.pem and jwt_public_key.pem upon execution of the creds_setup.sh script.

    • If you have a Mac with a version of OpenSSL that does not create these files, then you can use Homebrew to install a version of OpenSSL that will.
    • I think this issue can also creep up for Windows 10 Home users using Docker Desktop. (At the very least, I have encountered this problem.)

Am I correct in thinking that the Compose-Services repo should be updated to reflect these issues? As I mentioned above, I am a newcomer to Docker and Open-Source software, so I may be missing the mark.

Thank you for your time!

-Jim

1 Like
2

Hi @jimhenegan!

Welcome to the Forum and thank you very much for your constructive feedback - much appreciated! We have created a ticket for updating the documentation with regards to your list and we will update you on the progress.

You should have received the invite to the slack channel, please let us know if this is not the case.

Thanks again for your feedback.

1 Like