Sopel for Docker

🐳 Officially Unofficial™ Docker container for Sopel, a Python IRC bot

Relevant links:

• Sopel Homepage @ Sopel, The Python IRC Bot
• Sopel GitHub @ sopel-irc/sopel
• Docker GitHub @ sopel-irc/docker-sopel
• Docker Registry @ sopelirc/sopel

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Quickstart

First run

• Pull the docker image for the latest Sopel release (v8.0.1)

  $ docker pull sopelirc/sopel:latest

• Start your bot. Specify a name (e.g., my_first_sopel) for the container to make subsequent startups and shutdowns easier.

  $ docker run --name=my_first_sopel -ti sopelirc/sopel

  On the first run, you will be taken through the setup wizard to write the bot's configuration file. See the "First run" Sopel Wiki entry for more details.

Stopping and starting the bot

• You can stop the bot started with the command above with a simple keyboard interrupt (Ctrl-C), or use the docker stop command: docker stop my_first_sopel

• The bot can be restarted with the docker start command: docker start -ia my_first_sopel.

  Note: containers started with docker start ... need to be stopped with docker stop ... (Ctrl-C will not work) as in the example above.

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How to use this image

The minimum requirement for a Sopel bot is valid configuration file. You can create one by starting a new bot, or you can plug in a configuration file you already have! While Sopel already comes packaged with a wide variety of modules, you can easily add third-party and custom modules to your container.

Save a new configuration

Following the Quickstart steps will generate a configuration directory in the container's filesystem. You will likely want to extract this to your host for easier modification and persistence. You can use the copy command, docker cp ..., to extract the .cfg file or entire configuration folder to the directory of your choosing:

• copy the default.cfg file to /some/path/on/the/host directory

  $ docker cp my_first_sopel:/home/sopel/.sopel/default.cfg /some/path/on/the/host/

• copy the entire ~/.sopel configuration directory to /some/path/on/the/host directory

  $ docker cp my_first_sopel:/home/sopel/.sopel /some/path/on/the/host/

The extracted configuration file/folder can now be transfered or copied to be used as a template for other bots.

Use an existing configuration

A configuration file or folder can be mounted at /home/sopel/.sopel for use by the bot. The default configuration file name (default.cfg) should be used, or the correct file name should be passed as an argument to the command by appending -c correct_file_name.cfg to the docker run ... command.

• mount a configuration file

  $ docker run -v "/path/to/my/default.cfg:/home/sopel/.sopel/default.cfg" ...

• mount a configuration folder

  $ docker run -v "/path/to/config/folder:/home/sopel/.sopel" ...

If you are having permission issues, use the PUID and PGID environment variables to have the user in the container match the host ids. Alternately, you can change ownership of the configuration file/folder to match the container user (uid=100000, gid=100000)

Add third-party packages

Python packages

Modules available from PyPI

See EXTRA_PYPI_PACKAGES environment variable.

You can also mount a pip requirements.txt formatted file to /pypi_packages.txt with a list of packages to be installed on startup.

Modules from source

Mount the module source directory into /home/sopel/.sopel/modules, and Sopel will automatically recognize and load the module.

Alpine Linux packages

See EXTRA_APK_PACKAGES environment variable.

You can also mount a text file to /apk_packages.txt with a list of packages to be installed on startup.

Nightly Builds

An image based on the master branch of sopel-irc/sopel is rebuilt each day at 00:00 UTC using the nightly tag.

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Environment Variables

When you start the bot, you can adjust various settings related to the environment for the bot process by passing one or more environment variables on the docker run ... command line.

PUID and PGID

Normally, the sopel process runs with UID and GID of 100000 to prevent any unwanted/accidental access to host resources. This means that mounted volumes will need to allow read and write to a user with those ids. Instead, you can set these to change the ids of the sopel user on startup. For example,

$ docker run -e PUID=1000 ...
Setting UID for user sopel to 1000... Done.
...
...
Welcome to Sopel. Loading modules...
...

where, generally, you would set the PUID/PGID to match the mounted volume owner ids.

EXTRA_PYPI_PACKAGES

Packages from PyPI can be installed at startup by providing a space separated list of package names. Since pip install ... is being called under the hood, any pip-valid package name is acceptable. For example,

$ docker run -e EXTRA_PYPI_PACKAGES="sopel-modules.weather google-api-python-client sopel-modules.youtube" ...
Installing package "sopel-modules.weather" with pip...
...
Installing package "google-api-python-client" with pip...
...
Installing package "sopel-modules.youtube" with pip...
...
...
Welcome to Sopel. Loading modules...
...

will install the sopel weather module, the sopel YouTube module and its google-api-python-client requirement.

EXTRA_APK_PACKAGES

Occasionally, you may need to install system packages to satisfy requirements for various Python packages. These packages can be specified as a space separated list of packages to be installed by apk add --no-cache .... For example, you may need a database client, various tools required for compiling source code, and git to allow pip to install from a repository:

$ docker run -e EXTRA_APK_PACKAGES="mysql-client build-base git" ...
Installing apk packages: mysql-client build-base git...
...
...
Welcome to Sopel. Loading modules...
...

will install the required system packages.