Produce an artifact for a package using Docker.

The Nerves Docker artifact provider will use docker to create the artifact for the package. The output in Mix will be limited to the headlines from the process and the full build log can be found in the file build.log located root of the package path.

Images

Docker containers will be created based off the image that is loaded. By default, containers will use the default image nervesproject/nerves_system_br:latest. Sometimes additional host tools are required to build a package. Therefore, packages can provide their own images by specifying it in the package config under :provider_config. the file is specified as a tuple {"path/to/Dockerfile", tag_name}.

Example:

provider_config: [

docker: {"Dockerfile", "my_system:0.1.0"}

]

Volumes and Cache

Nerves will mount several volumes to the container for use in building the artifact.

Mounted from the host:

• /nerves/env/<package.name> - The package being built.
• /nerves/env/platform - The package platform package.
• /nerves/host/artifacts - The host artifact directory.

Nerves will also mount the host NERVES_DL_DIR to save downloaded assets the build platform requires for producing the artifact. This is mounted at /nerves/dl. This volume can significally reduce build times but has potential for corruption. If you suspect that your build is failing due to a faulty downloaded cached data, you can manually mount the offending container and remove the file from this location or delete the entire directory.

Nerves uses a docker volume to attach the build files. The volume name is defined as the package name and a unique id that is stored at ARTIFACT_DIR/.docker_id. The build directory is mounted to the container at /nerves/build and is configured as the current working directory.

Cleanup

Perodically, you may want to destroy all unused volumes to clean up. Please refer to the Docker documentation for more information on how to do this.

When the provider is finished, the artifact is decompressed on the host at the packages defined artifact directory.