Testing Locally with Docker

Opencast is a complex system that requires multiple steps to install and configure properly, which may be too complicated for quick, local testing. Therefore, the University of Münster provides various Docker images for Opencast that can simplify this process. The only requirement is an x86_64 Linux system with a running Docker Engine.

This method is ideal for new adopters who just want to try out Opencast. It can also be used to test workflows. Because of the isolation that Docker provides, multiple instances of Opencast can run in parallel on a single system. This might be helpful for developers.

Install Docker

Docker is available for multiple Linux distributions. Please have a look at the official documentation for the latest installation instructions. Note that it might be necessary to install docker-compose separately.

Start with docker-compose

Opencast is packaged into multiple distributions. There is a separate Docker image for each distribution. Simple installations can use the all-in-one distribution.

Opencast requires a database and a message broker (Apache ActiveMQ). We currently support H2 or MySQL/MariaDB databases. The Docker Hub repository has official Docker images for MySQL and MariaDB. H2 is already integrated into Opencast so that no database container is needed. There are multiple 3rd-party Docker images for ActiveMQ; this guide uses webcenter/activemq.

docker-compose can be used to configure, start and connect all services automatically. The opencast-docker repository contains multiple configuration examples:

Configuration	Compose file
all-in-one + H2	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencast/opencast-docker/<version>/docker-compose/docker-compose.allinone.h2.yml
all-in-one + MariaDB	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencast/opencast-docker/<version>/docker-compose/docker-compose.allinone.mariadb.yml
admin, presentation, worker + MariaDB	https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencast/opencast-docker/<version>/docker-compose/docker-compose.multiserver.mariadb.yml

Choose and download a configuration:

$ curl -o docker-compose.yml <URL>

You might want to edit the compose file and add extra volumes to include custom configurations or workflows (see compose file reference).

The compose files assume that the ActiveMQ configuration is located at ./assets/activemq.xml. Additionally, if you use MariaDB, the SQL DDL commands for the Opencast database must be available at ./assets/opencast-ddl.sql. You can download both files from the repository:

$ mkdir assets
$ curl -o assets/activemq.xml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencast/opencast-docker/<version>/docker-compose/assets/activemq.xml
$ curl -o assets/opencast-ddl.sql https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencast/opencast-docker/<version>/docker-compose/assets/opencast-ddl.sql

Alternatively, you can use the Docker images to generate these files. This has the advantage that the correct version is always used:

$ mkdir assets

$ docker run -it --rm \
    quay.io/opencast/allinone:<version> \
    app:print:activemq.xml > assets/activemq.xml

$ docker run -it --rm \
    -e ORG_OPENCASTPROJECT_DB_VENDOR=MySQL \
    quay.io/opencast/allinone:<version> \
    app:print:ddl > assets/opencast-ddl.sql

At this point you are ready to start Opencast with the up command:

$ docker-compose up

After downloading the necessary Docker images, docker-compose should start all relevant services and you should see the logging output. Alternatively, adding the -d flag will start Opencast in the background and hide the log messages. The admin UI is available at http://localhost:8080.

The down command will stop Opencast and remove the created Docker containers. All relevant Opencast files are still preserved in Docker volumes. To remove them as well, run down -v instead.