My thoughts on Rockstor and thoughts on changes

[Hooverdan (Dan W.)]

@CJ_and_Darren
the changes you’re proposing are good one, especially in light of needs to e.g. have larger fonts/displays that can be easily configured. I suspect, it will be a little while before that can be added, due to the first priority of rebasing on OpenSuse as @phillxnet has stated in other threads. But I think those would be good additions once the new base becomes stable for general audiences (and has feature parity with the current CentOS based versions).

As for your question on the RockOns - that is more of a philsophical approach. The RockOn framework (as I interpret it) was designed to make life easier for non-docker experts, so an “app” can easily be added using the docker architecture, but also not requiring major understanding of all the switches, bobs and other things to get it up and running successfully. So, there is, I believe, no intention on changing that approach (@Flox you can add many more arguments, I am sure). It’s about the balance of flexibility and ease-of-use. If you look at some of the Rock-Ons and compare the configuration options with what’s shown on dockerhub you will see that not every single option is always exposed (seems more like an 80/20 rule, covering 80% of use cases with 20% of the configuration).

With that said, there have been a few threads discussing this notion, probably mostly from the view point of advanced users that feel more comfortable with docker concept and the tools available out there for managing containers and such.

If you haven’t found it in your searches yet (unlikely), but here was a thread from some time ago:

Use a different docker app?

You’re better off seeking answers for your rockon problems. Rockstor thinks that it’s the default method for working with docker containers. Even if you found a way to install DockSTARTer alongside Rockstor, you’ll just end up with issues when these two things conflict. It’s not a viable option to try and replace 1 part of the Rockstor appliance’s functionality. Unless you want to fork the repository, pull the Rockstor code apart, kill the references and hooks to Docker and run your own compl…

If you’re intending on spinning up quite a few containers based on your other thread discussing your plans

Webserver,Disability and Rescues

(topic withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

and need control on specific detailed configurations, then within the above thread, @Code_Monkey provides his version of using Portainer (as a RockOn itself) to manage other containers that don’t have RockOn jsons available for them:
check out post 4/12 in that thread:

@Code_Monkey

I created a Portainer rockon, and then used that to setup other docker instances.

If you want to use Portainer like I did, you can put the following portainer.json into /opt/rockstor/rockons-metastore and then install it as a Rockon in Rockstor itself.

From there, go to the Portainer UI (on the Rockons page), go to settings, and select Use External Templates and paste this into the url field https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Qballjos/portainer_templates/master/Template/template.json

That will give you access to most of the LinuxServers.io docker images.

But, as mentioned, that goes beyond what Rockstor’s original architecture was about.