Docker container crashes because of missing dependencies since ipfs@v0.51.0

[elchenberg]

• Version:
  • ipfs/js-ipfs:latest
  • ipfs/js-ipfs:next
  • ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.50.3-rc.24 and higher
  • ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.51.0 and higher

• Platform:
  • Docker

    $ docker version
    Client: Docker Engine - Community
    Version:           19.03.9
    API version:       1.40
    Go version:        go1.13.10
    Git commit:        9d988398e7
    Built:             Fri May 15 00:22:47 2020
    OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
    Experimental:      false
    
    Server: Docker Engine - Community
    Engine:
    Version:          19.03.9
    API version:      1.40 (minimum version 1.12)
    Go version:       go1.13.10
    Git commit:       9d988398e7
    Built:            Fri May 15 00:28:17 2020
    OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
    Experimental:     true
    containerd:
    Version:          v1.2.13
    GitCommit:        7ad184331fa3e55e52b890ea95e65ba581ae3429
    runc:
    Version:          1.0.0-rc10
    GitCommit:        dc9208a3303feef5b3839f4323d9beb36df0a9dd
    docker-init:
    Version:          0.18.0
    GitCommit:        fec3683

• Subsystem:
  • ipfs-cli / electron-webrtc

Severity:

critical

Description:

Running the Docker containers fails since the introduction of ipfs-cli with it's electron-webrtc dependency.

$ docker run --rm -p 5002:5002 -it ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.51.0
Initializing IPFS daemon...
js-ipfs version: 0.1.0
System version: x64/linux
Node.js version: 12.19.0
Error: Could not start Xvfb: "Xvfb is not installed or is not in your $PATH". 
The "xvfb" package is required to run "electron-eval" on Linux. Please install it first ("sudo apt-get install xvfb").
    at /usr/lib/node_modules/ipfs/node_modules/electron-eval/lib/index.js:147:22
    at ChildProcess.onError (/usr/lib/node_modules/ipfs/node_modules/headless/index.js:70:9)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:421:26)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:314:20)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:273:12)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:469:16)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:84:21)

It is very difficult to get Electron support in a Alpine-based image because there are no binaries built against musl libc. I have started to work on a fix (switching to a Debian-based Node container) but electron and electron-eval have a lot of dependencies (libasound2, libgconf-2-4, libgtk2.0-0, libnss3, libxss1, libxtst6, xvfb) so the container gets pretty big.

Then I tried to run the container with a small change instead and it worked, too (at the cost of losing WebRTC support, I guess):

FROM ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.51.0
RUN rm -rf /usr/lib/node_modules/ipfs/node_modules/electron-webrtc

Maybe – instead of changing the Dockerfile – it would be better to fix this bug by moving both electron-webrtc and wrtc to the optionalDependencies of ipfs-cli? (Currently electron-webrtc is in the dependencies section and wrtc in the devDependencies section.) According to the log messages they are optional anyway:

function getLibp2p ({ libp2pOptions, options, config, peerId }) {
  // Attempt to use any of the WebRTC versions available globally
  let electronWebRTC
  let wrtc
  try {
    // @ts-ignore - cant find type info
    electronWebRTC = require('electron-webrtc')()
  } catch (err) {
    log('failed to load optional electron-webrtc dependency')
  }
  try {
    wrtc = require('wrtc')
  } catch (err) {
    log('failed to load optional webrtc dependency')
  }

  if (wrtc || electronWebRTC) {
    log(`Using ${wrtc ? 'wrtc' : 'electron-webrtc'} for webrtc support`)
    set(libp2pOptions, 'config.transport.WebRTCStar.wrtc', wrtc || electronWebRTC)
    libp2pOptions.modules.transport.push(WebRTCStar)
  }

Steps to reproduce the error:

Healthy container:

docker run --rm -p 5002:5002 -it ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.50.2

Crashing container:

docker run --rm -p 5002:5002 -it ipfs/js-ipfs:v0.51.0

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[achingbrain]

Thanks for bringing this up.

I think this is just a bug - electron-wrtc shouldn't be a dep at all, it's like wrtc in that it's an opt-in dep you can install if your application needs it.

WebRTC is only really intended for use in the browser since it's currently the only way in-browser nodes can be dialled - the code you've referenced is part of the daemon startup - used under node which can be dialled over TCP which is vastly preferable.

[achingbrain]

Please try this again with v0.52.0 and re-open if it's not fixed.

[elchenberg]

Seems to work like a charm. Thank you very much!