architecture.md

Architecture

The Oryx system comprises Build and Run images. Build images include compilers, libraries, headers and other tools necessary to prepare artifacts; Run images are smaller and contain only components required to run programs.

After the generated build script runs, artifacts are exported as files from the Build image to be mounted into the Run image or added to a derived container in a Dockerfile.

Another script generator in Run images generates a script to start the app correctly.

Components

Follows a description of each of our components.

Build script generator

The build script generator is a command line tool (and .NET Core library) that can generate and execute build scripts for a given source repo. It analyzes the codebase, detecting which programming platforms are being used and how each should be built.

Build image

We have a single build image which supports all of the SDKs and their versions. This allows developers to use multiple languages in their build, for instance run a Python setup script when building their .NET Core app, or have a TypeScript frontend for their Python app. You can take a look at its Dockerfile to better understand its contents.

Note that some layers of this build image come from yet another set of images, which we build independently for modularization and for faster build times. You can see what are those images and how they are built in their build script.

To help the user select which version they want for each platform, they can use the benv script pre-installed in the build image. For example, source benv python=3.6 node=8 will make Python 3.6 and the latest supported version of Node 8 the default ones.

The build image also contains the build script generator, which can be accessed by its alias, oryx.

The build image manifest is at /images/build/Dockerfiles/Dockerfile. It is built and published via the Microsoft Container Registry (MCR) (info) as mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/build and syndicated to Docker Hub as https://hub.docker.com/_/microsoft-oryx-images. Pull with docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/build:latest.

For a high-level image of how the build image is constructed, click here.

For a list of packages installed as a part of this build image, click here.

Lts Versions Build Image

Docker

• buildpack-deps:stretch
• mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/python-build-base:3.7-{BUILD}

apt-get

• Basic build tools
  • build-essential
  • default-libmysqlclient-dev
  • git
  • libpq-dev
  • make
  • moreutils
  • rsync
  • unixodbc-dev
  • unzip
  • zip
• .NET Core
  • libc6
  • libgcc1
  • libgssapi-krb5-2
  • libicu57
  • liblttng-ust0
  • libssl1.0.2
  • libstdc++6
  • zlib1g
• Node
  • jq
• Python
  • tk-dev
  • uuid-dev

Full build image

Docker

• Python
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/python-build-base:2.7-{BUILD}
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/python-build-base:3.6-{BUILD}
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/python-build-base:3.8-{BUILD}
• PHP
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/php-build-base:5.6-{BUILD}
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/php-build-base:7.0-{BUILD}
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/php-build-base:7.2-{BUILD}
  • mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/php-build-base:7.3-{BUILD}
• golang:1.11-stretch

apt-get

• .NET Core
  • libunwind8
  • libcurl3
  • libuuid1
• Node
  • jq

Startup script generators

These are command line tools, one for each platform, that inspect the output directory of an application and write a script that can start it. They are written in Go, and are located in src/startupscriptgenerator.

The startup script generators are written in Go to reduce storage space required. Nevertheless you don't have to install Go to build this project since it's available in the Oryx build image.

Set the GOPATH variable to include the Oryx repo, for example GOPATH=$GOPATH:c:\src\oryx. Since the applications are inside the src folder there, Go should be able to find the packages and produce builds.

Run images

We have a set of runtime images, and their Dockerfiles are located in /images/runtime. Some of the Dockerfiles are generated from a template, also located in this folder, with a corresponding script to turn those scripts into actual Dockerfiles. Having templates helps us maintain consistency across the Dockerfiles.

There are some exceptions that are not templates, where we have to customize the image. A typical need for such customization is security, where we have to patch a tool or rely on a different base image than the official images released for a given platform.

Each runtime image contains the startup script generator for its platform.

The Run images are published to MCR (mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/<platform>).

For a high-level image of how the runtime images are constructed, click here.

For a list of packages installed as a part of the runtime images, click here.

Common base image

Docker

• buildpack-deps:stretch-curl

apt-get

• xz-utils

.NET Core template

Docker

• golang:1.11-stretch
• `mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/runtime:{VERSION}

apt-get

• file

Node template

Docker

• golang:1.11-stretch
• mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/node-base:{VERSION}

PHP template

Docker

• golang:1.11-stretch
• mcr.microsoft.com/oryx/php-base:{VERSION}

Python template

Docker

• golang:1.11-stretch

Repo structure

• build: scripts for building the script generator and build and runtime images
• images: Dockerfiles for the build and runtime images
• platforms:platform SDK versions to be built
• src: source code for the build and startup script generators
• tests: tests.
• vsts: CI/CD configuration.

Prerequisites

The following are required to run and test this project locally.

• Bash v4.4
• .NET Core 3.1
• Go 1.11+ (for startup script generator)
• Docker v18.06.1-ce