Application Image

The application image is a layer on top of the base image and contains the Dataverse software.

An “application image” offers you a deployment ready Dataverse application running on the underlying application server, which is provided by the Base Image. Its sole purpose is to bundle the application and any additional material necessary to successfully jumpstart the application.

Until all JVM Options are MicroProfile Config enabled, it also adds the necessary scripting glue to configure the applications domain during booting the application server. See Tunables.

Within the main repository, you may find the application image’s files at <git root>/src/main/docker. This is the same Maven module providing a Dataverse WAR file for classic installations, and uses the Maven Docker Plugin to build and ship the image within a special Maven profile.

NOTE: This image is created, maintained and supported by the Dataverse community on a best-effort basis. IQSS will not offer you support how to deploy or run it, please reach out to the community for help on using it. You might be interested in taking a look at Docker, Kubernetes, and Containers, linking you to some (community-based) efforts.

Supported Image Tags

This image is sourced from the main upstream code repository of the Dataverse software. Development and maintenance of the image’s code happens there (again, by the community).

All supported images receive scheduled maintenance, executed every Sunday. New revisions are kept to a minimum, usually created when some dependency needs (security) updates. For the application images it correlates mostly to the base image receiving updates.

Our tagging is inspired by Bitnami and we offer two categories of tags:

  • rolling: images change over time

  • immutable: images are fixed and never change

In the tags below you’ll see the term “flavor”. This refers to flavor of Linux the container is built on. We use Ubuntu as the basis for our images and, for the time being, the only operating system flavors we use and support are noble (6.4+) and jammy (pre-6.4).

You can find all the tags at https://hub.docker.com/r/gdcc/dataverse/tags

Tags for Production Use

The images of the three latest releases of Dataverse will receive updates such as security patches for the underlying operating system. Content will be fairly stable as disruptive changes like Payara or Java upgrades will be handled in a new major or minor upgrade to Dataverse (a new <dv-major>.<dv-minor> tag). Expect disruptive changes in case of high risk security threats.

  • Latest
    Definition: latest
    Summary: Rolling tag, always pointing to the latest revision of the most current Dataverse release. In Dataverse 6.6 and lower, the equivalent was the alpha tag, which has been deleted.
  • Rolling Production
    Definition: <dv-major>.<dv-minor>-<flavor>
    Example: 6.7-noble
    Summary: Rolling tag, pointing to the latest revision of an immutable production image for released versions of Dataverse.
  • Immutable Production
    Definition: <dv-major>.<dv-minor>-<flavor>-r<revision>
    Example: 6.7-noble-r1
    Summary: An immutable tag where the revision is incremented for rebuilds of the image.
    This image should be especially attractive if you want explict control over when your images are updated.

Tags for Development Use

All of the tags below are strongly recommended only for development purposes due to their fast-changing nature. In addition to updates due to PR merges, the most recent tags undergo scheduled maintenance to ensure timely security fixes. When a development cycle of Dataverse finishes (see Making Releases), maintenance ceases for any of the tags below carrying version numbers. For now, stale images will be kept on Docker Hub indefinitely.

  • Unstable
    Definition: unstable
    Summary: Rolling tag, tracking the develop branch (see also The “develop” Branch). (Dockerfile)
    Please expect abrupt changes like new Payara or Java versions as well as OS updates or flavor switches when using this tag.
  • Upcoming
    Definition: <dv-major>.<dv-minor-next>-<flavor>
    Example: 6.8-noble
    Summary: Rolling tag, equivalent to unstable for current development cycle. Will roll over to the rolling production tag after a Dataverse release.
    Discussion: Perhaps you are eager to starting testing features of an upcoming version (e.g. 6.8) in a staging environment. You select the 6.8-noble tag (as opposed to unstable) because you want to stay on 6.8 rather switching to the version after that when a release is made (which would happen if you had selected the unstable tag). Also, when the next release comes out (6.8 in this example), you would stay on the 6.8-noble tag, which is the same tag that someone would use who wants the final release of 6.8. (See “Rolling Production”, above.)

NOTE: In these tags for development usage, the version number will always be 1 minor version ahead of existing Dataverse releases. Example: Assume Dataverse 6.x is released, 6.(x+1) is underway. The rolling tag in use during the cycle will be 6.(x+1)-FFF and 6.(x+1)-FFF-p6.202P.P-jJJ. See also: Making Releases.

Image Contents

The application image builds by convention upon the base image and provides:

  • Dataverse class files

  • Resource files

  • Dependency JAR files

  • JHove configuration

  • Script to configure the application server domain for JVM Options not yet MicroProfile Config enabled.

The image is provided as a multi-arch image to support the most common architectures Dataverse usually runs on: AMD64 (Windows/Linux/…) and ARM64 (Apple M1/M2). (Easy to extend.)

Build Instructions

Assuming you have Docker, Docker Desktop, Moby or some remote Docker host configured, up and running from here on.

Simply execute the Maven modules packaging target with activated “container” profile from the projects Git root to compile the Java code and build the image:

mvn -Pct clean package

Some additional notes, using Maven parameters to change the build and use …:

  • … a different tag only: add -Dapp.image.tag=tag.
    Note: default is unstable
  • … a different image name and tag: add -Dapp.image=name:tag.
    Note: default is gdcc/dataverse:${app.image.tag}
  • … a different image registry than Docker Hub: add -Ddocker.registry=registry.example.org (see also DMP docs on registries)

  • … a different base image tag: add -Dbase.image.tag=tag
    Note: default is unstable
  • … a different base image: add -Dbase.image=name:tag
    Note: default is gdcc/base:${base.image.tag}. See also Base Image for more details on it.

Automated Builds & Publishing

See note above at “Supported Image Tags”.

Processor Architecture and Multiarch

This image is created as a “multi-arch image”, supporting the most common architectures Dataverse usually runs on: AMD64 (Windows/Linux/…) and ARM64 (Apple M1/M2), by using Maven Docker Plugin’s BuildX mode.

Building the image via mvn -Pct package or mvn -Pct install as above will only build for the architecture of the Docker machine’s CPU.

Only mvn -Pct clean deploy -Ddocker.platforms=linux/amd64,linux/arm64 will trigger building on all enabled architectures. Yet, to enable building with non-native code on your build machine, you will need to setup a cross-platform builder.

On Linux, you should install qemu-user-static (preferably via your package management) on the host and run docker run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static --reset -p yes to enable that builder. The Docker plugin will setup everything else for you.

Tunables

The Base Image provides a long list of possible options to tune many aspects of the application server, and, as the application image builds upon it, Base Image Tunables apply to it as well.

In addition, the application image provides the following tunables:

Env. variable

Default

Type

Description

MP_CONFIG_PROFILE

ct

String

Set to switch the activated MicroProfile Config Profile. Note that certain defaults will not apply any longer. See Application Server Settings for details.

dataverse_* and doi_*

-

String

Configure any JVM Options not yet MicroProfile Config enabled with this magic trick.

  1. Simply pick a JVM option from the list and replace any . with _.

  2. Replace any - in the option name with __.

Note that the script init_2_configure.sh will apply a few very important defaults to enable quick usage by a) activating the scheduled tasks timer, b) add local file storage if not disabled, and c) a sensible password reset timeout:

dataverse_auth_password__reset__timeout__in__minutes=60
dataverse_timerServer=true
dataverse_files_storage__driver__id=local

if dataverse_files_storage__driver__id = "local" then
    dataverse_files_local_type=file
    dataverse_files_local_label=Local
    dataverse_files_local_directory=${STORAGE_DIR}/store

Locations

There are only a few important additions to the list of locations by the base image. Please make sure to back these locations with volumes or tmpfs to avoid writing data into the overlay filesystem, which will significantly hurt performance.

Location

Value

Description

${STORAGE_DIR}

/dv

Defined by base image. Either back this folder or, if suitable, the locations below it with volumes or tmpfs.

${STORAGE_DIR}/uploads

/dv/uploads

See dataverse.files.uploads for a detailed description.

${STORAGE_DIR}/temp

/dv/temp

See dataverse.files.directory for a detailed description.

${STORAGE_DIR}/store

/dv/store

Important when using the default provided local storage option (see above and File Storage)

/tmp

-

Location for temporary files, see also Temporary Upload File Storage

Exposed Ports

See base image exposed port.

Entry & Extension Points

The application image makes use of the base image provided system to execute scripts on boot, see Entry & Extension Points. See there for potential extension of this image in your own derivative.