Hubs Compose

Hubs Compose is a Docker Compose setup than can be used to orchestrate all the services used by Hubs for local development.¹

Windows Prerequisites

Summary

• (Optional) Install WSL2
• Ensure Git checks out Unix line endings
• Use Git Bash to run scripts

(Optional) Install WSL2

Docker Desktop runs more quickly when it can use its WSL2-based engine. Docker Desktop can only use its WSL2 engine if WSL2 is installed.

There are also other benefits to installing WSL2, including being able to run scripts and programs that your Unix developer friends share with you.

To install WSL2, follow Microsoft's documentation here: Install Linux on Windows with WSL

⚠️ Potential Conflict

If you plan to run Docker Desktop on Windows, and you want to take advantage of Docker Desktop's faster WSL2 engine, and you already have WSL2 installed, you need to first uninstall any previous versions of Docker Engine and CLI installed directly through WSL2.

You can read more about Docker Desktop + WSL2 on Docker's website.

Use Unix Line Endings

Some scripts used to run hubs-compose rely on those scripts containing Unix line endings. If you're running hubs-compose on Windows, you may need to change your Git line endings setting to ensure your local files include Unix-style line endings.

To change this setting, open a Git Bash shell, then run git config --global core.autocrlf false to ensure that the intended Unix-style line endings are preserved upon Git checkout.

If you've already cloned this hubs-compose repository locally, you may have to delete your local copy of the repository and re-clone it after changing your line endings setting.

Use Git Bash

Some scripts used to run hubs-compose are meant to run in a Unix-like bash shell. The "Git Bash" shell included with Git - also known as MINGW64 - will work to run these scripts; the Windows Terminal will not work to run these scripts.

Usage

Once the containers are up and running and you have accepted the self-signed certificates, you can visit https://hubs.local:4000 from your browser.

Initial Setup

1. Install Docker Compose
2. Install Mutagen
3. Install Mutagen Compose

• Ensure that the version of Mutagen Compose you're installing matches the version of Mutagen that you installed. (If you install the latest versions at the same time, they will "match".)

4. Add these entries to your hosts file:

    127.0.0.1   hubs.local
    127.0.0.1   hubs-proxy.local
   

• On Windows, your plain-text hosts file is probably located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

5. Initialize the services with bin/init

Orchestration

• Start containers with bin/up
  • bin/up starts the Mutagen daemon automatically. The Mutagen daemon will stay running until you stop it manually with mutagen daemon stop.
• Stop containers bin/down
• Observe running containers with bin/observe²
• Restore all services to a fresh state with bin/reset
• Update all service source code with bin/services-update
• Update service dependencies with bin/init

Self-Signed Certificates

Service communication is encrypted with self-signed Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates. You will need to accept the proxy certificate and the certificate at each of the Hubs ports mapped in docker-compose.yml. At the time of this writing, that means visiting these links in your web browser and following the prompts:

• Proxy
• Dialog
• Spoke
• Hubs Admin
• Hubs Client
• Reticulum

Admin panel access

To connect to the admin panel you will need to manually promote an account to admin.

Troubleshooting

Experiencing issues with hubs-compose? Follow these steps to diagnose and resolve common problems:

1. Ensure your operating system, internet browser, and Docker installation are up-to-date.
2. Update your local copy of the hubs-compose repository and all related service source codes to the latest versions.
3. If bin/init presents problems, remove any existing hubs-compose containers, images, and volumes, then retry the command. Check your internet connection for adequate speed to prevent timeouts during large downloads.
4. For SSL certificate issues, clearing your local browser cache may resolve the problem.
5. If the above steps do not resolve the issue, try restarting your machine.

If problems persist after these steps, consider reaching out for community support or filing an issue in the repository.

Command Execution

Common commands can be easily executed inside a running container from your shell using the scripts inside the given service’s bin/ directory. For example, calling bin/mix deps.get from ./services/reticulum/ will download the dependencies for Reticulum.

Development

Architectural Decision Records

Records of architectural decisions are stored in the decisions/ directory. If you make a decision that affects “the structure, non-functional characteristics, dependencies, interfaces, or construction techniques” of the project, please document it. If you install ADR Tools, adr new will generate the template for you.

Footnotes

1. This is not a production-ready setup. It does not account for security or scalability. Additionally the permissions files were generated for development purposes only. ↩

2. Requires tmux and watch program files in the user’s path ↩