I'm new to unRAID and to Dockers. I'm trying to run some custom shell script and Python programs and trying to figure out the "right" way to do things... I got some tests to work but I want to make sure I'm not going to cause trouble for myself down the road.

 

I have some scripts that help organize and cleanup my photos so I'll want to be able to run them on a specific folder on a specific share.

 

I'll need to be able to:

 

• run git and download code from a repository
• use apt-get to install programs like exiftool
• install/use pip to install python libs
• sometimes run the CLI in a remote window so I can leave the process/program running undisturbed
• sometimes SSH directly into the CLI so I can run things directly on my local computer

 

This sounds like I'd want to setup a Docker for this... I also played around using the CLI accessible from the GUI but I guess that environment is only in RAM because I lose any installs once I reboot.

On 1/25/2020 at 4:51 PM, soong said:

but I guess that environment is only in RAM because I lose any installs once I reboot.

Correct, unRAID unpacks fresh from RAM on every boot. 

 

On 1/25/2020 at 4:51 PM, soong said:

• use apt-get to install programs like exiftool

Technically speaking this item is the only one on the list that can't be done without using Docker/VM, due to the fact that unRAID does not have apt-get (or any common package manager for that matter).

On 1/25/2020 at 4:51 PM, soong said:

This sounds like I'd want to setup a Docker for this

While this is not the only way to do things it is definitely the one i recommend. I would start by looking on docker hub for a base image of a distro you are most comfortable using, preferably an official image or one from well known maintainer (Python images are available as well).

From there you have a couple of paths. You could pull the image, spin up a container and exec in, install all the extras you want in the container, then commit it to a new image for later use. Alternatively (and my preference) would be to write a Dockerfile that makes the customization to the base image as that will make rebuilding the image with new packages easier. 

Once you have a custom image you can either run your scripts manually from the unRAID CLI or using the user scripts plugin by spinning up a containers with the correct script. Something like

docker run --rm -v /mnt/user/share-or-path-to-files:/path-in-container:rw my-custom-image /script-in-image.py --args-for-script

or if you dont want to bake the script into the image

docker run --rm -v /mnt/user/share-or-path-to-files:/path-in-container:rw  -v /mnt/user/scripts:/scripts:ro my-custom-image /scripts/my-script.py --args-for-script

You will want to look at the docker run -d and -i and -t flags as they can control if the container runs like a daemon or like a script on the console.

 

 

 

 

Flask-shell2http (https://github.com/eshaan7/Flask-Shell2HTTP) solves your problem easily.