Kopano Docker environment

andreas_mueller

Hello!

Not sure whether I’m in the right section of the forum for this question, but if not, maybe an admin can move this post.

I need to update the OS on my Mailserver, which in this case means a clean OS setup and reinstallation of kopano as the hoster does not support an OS-upgrade. To avoid having to do this ever again I became interested in setting up kopano in a docker environment. I found the blog post on https://kopano.com/de/blog-de/using-docker-to-spin-up-a-kopano-environment/ which seems very promising, but I have some questions in order to fully understand the implications and ramifications:

Is there a difference between the “download-from-github-version” and the one I can find on the docker hub by running “docker search kopano”? Which version of the software do the docker-images contain, compared to the official and/or nightly builds?
Will this solution be maintained, so that bugfixes become available, or is it more of a “technology preview” to have a first look at the software - in other words, how safe is it to use it as a production environment in the future?
I’m relatively new to docker, so please correct me if I’m wrong: when updating software from the docker hub, I do a docker pull to get updated images. In an installation basing on the github source, I’d simply have to clone the repository again and do a docker-compose up -d. Right? Coming to think of it: Could I install from the github source and then pull updated images from the docker hub in the future?

Thank you very much!
Kind regards, Andreas

fbartels

Hi @andreas_mueller,

reading through your post I want to clear something up, that I have the feeling you misunderstood so far. The parts on Github and the Docker Hub belong together in the sense that Github has the gear to build the container images and on the Docker Hub you can find the resulting (and tagged) images.

The Github repository features in the article is generally meant is an easy demo environment based in the nightly Kopano packages, which regardless of within Containers or not we cannot recommend for production environments. The other thing that is possible with the project is to build your own containers, which could then be based on the supported Kopano releases.

The feedback on the project was a bit spotty, but quite some users disliked the autoconfiguration and the amount of running containers, so we are currently busy creating new containers for Kopano One (which would then also require a valid Kopano One subscription for proper usage), these should be available in the upcoming weeks.

andreas_mueller

Dear @fbartels,

so many times I told my children to user their own brain, not other peoples’… should have listened to myself. During the weekend I realized that my question regarding a repeated download of the github package were complete nonsense - sorry to have bothered you with that. Looking at the packages on the Docker Hub I found two different sets of images - one tagged “zokradonh”, which are pulled using the github project, and one tagged “kopano”. Am I right (this time) supposing that the “kopano”-images will (one day) be those for Kopano One and that the “zokradonh”-Images will not be maintained in the future?

Kind regards,
Andreas

fbartels

Hi @andreas_mueller,

no those two projects are the same, one is just build from a forked repository that is located in the Kopano Github account. They even share the same readme (https://hub.docker.com/r/zokradonh/kopano_core and https://hub.docker.com/r/kopano/kopano_core).

The Kopano One images will have a different name.

andreas_mueller

@fbartels OK, thank you! Just one question remaining - will the “kopano” images be built/updated/whatever along with the nightlies in the future, in other words: will they be maintained and have the same versions as those you can download from download.kopano.io?

fbartels

@andreas_mueller they did auto build in the past, until Travis discontinued their “open source tier”.

The project will continue to receive updates, simply because it is the base of e.g. the Univention Meet app, but apart from that its not really a priority at the moment.

Like already said in my initial reply, I would recommend to use the project as a base and then build your own containers with the supported binaries (which you could simply rebuild to apply updates).

andreas_mueller

@fbartels Thank you very much for your time! Now I see what I can do.
Kind regards,
Andreas