Dockerize MongoDB v3.4 on Raspberry Pi?

Question

I have this problem. It seems that MongoDB v3.4 can't be installed on 32-bits systems so not on my raspberry running Raspbian. I tried to run a 64-bit image with Docker (is it possible?). But when I try to pull the official mongo docker repo: https://hub.docker.com/_/mongo/.

It says no matching manifest for linux/arm in the manifest list entries. I also tried pulling custom rpi-mongodb images but they all run a 2.4 version of MongoDB... And my server can't run with this version

How can I run MongoDB v3.4 on my Raspberry Pi?

Answer 1

Since the Raspberry Pi's architecture is ARM, so only the images that were built for ARM architecture can be used on the RPI. And there is a very low number of those ARM images.

The only choice is to build a new image by ourself. Problem is we cannot do this by the regular way (Dockerfile: FROM another-than-ARM-arch-img) and build on our PC's arch machine. The main trick is to use a CI server (e.g. Travis) to build your Dockerfile (and we must Register QEMU in the build agent).

I have succeeded to build an OpenMediaVault docker image for RPI based on this tutorial.

The idea is

1. Looking for the Dockerfile of MongoDB 3.4 and adapt its content to our Dockerfile.

2. Create our Dockerfile to build ARM image for the RPI.

   FROM resin/rpi-raspbian # Since resin is providing some useful arm arch images
   
   # Your adapted content from 
   # MongoDB 3.4 Dockerfile
   # ....
   

3. Create a .travis.yml as described in the said tutorial.

4. Go to your favorite CI service and link your git repo to it.
5. Let the CI Build, and push the image to docker hub
6. Pull the image from docker hub to your RPI.

Another solution

Is to build docker images from Resin.io. This solution has a drawback is that we cannot push the built image to docker hub and pull it everywhere else. I just let you the doc here since it would make my answer so loooong.

Answer 2

If an older version is OK (2.4.10)...

Clone this git repository onto your local raspberry pi (install git first) then run the docker build as per the readme on the web page to create the docker image, then create / start / run a docker container from that image:

Git repository for mongodb Dockerfile

Once the image is built and a container started from it you should be able to log on directly to the mongodb container and interact with the mongo client to issue commands that talk to the database, for example:

docker exec -i -t yourMongodbContainerName /bin/bash

Only problem found concerns stopping the container, which fails. Docker kills the container after the timeout (longer timeout same deal). This 'unclean shutdown' means a re-start of the container fails as mongodb complains about a lock file being in a bad state. You can see this in the logs:

docker logs yourMongodbContainerName

Failure can be managed by 1. ensuring no apps access the database before 2. stopping the mongodb container then 3. deleting the lock file in container at /data/db/ (typically mapped to docker host using -v because containers are obviously transient) finally 4. restart mongodb container as part of a re-deploy.

Version of mongodb is 2.4.10. I'm connecting via nodejs and 2.2.35 client drivers from npm were the latest I found that worked.