1. VAGRANT AND DOCKER AS LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Christinger Tomer
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
November 19, 2016

2. Technology and the Education of Archivists and Librarians
It seems reasonable to assume that the solutions to many of the challenges confronting librarians and archivists today will involve the creative use of information technologies. Yet, librarians and archivists commonly do not understand how the systems they use to provide services actually work. Most of the students currently enrolled in LIS degree programs are unlikely to enter the workforce with substantial knowledge or skills.

3. Why Don’t MLIS Students Learn More about IT?
Duration of most Master’s programs
Academic Backgrounds of Most MLIS degree students
The “Appliance” Mentality
Unimaginative Approaches to the Design of Instruction
Limitations of the Computing Environments Available for Teaching and Learning

4. New Possibilities through Virtualization Systems
Portable Learning Lab
Support for Learning via Experimentation
Exposure to Systems and Applications Outside the Mainstream of Academic and/or Enterprise Computing

5. Vagrant and Docker
Vagrant is an open source software tool for building and maintaining highly portable virtual development environments that are sandboxed in a virtual machine.
Docker is another open-source project that automates the deployment of Linux applications inside software containers. Docker uses the resource isolation features of the Linux kernel such as `cgroups` and kernel `namespaces`, and a union-capable file system such as `aufs` to allow independent "containers" to run within a single Linux instance, by design avoiding the overhead of starting and maintaining virtual machines.

6. How Vagrant Works

7. Elements of Vagrant
Provider, meaning a virtualization to host the Vagrant Box, e.g., VirtualBox, VMWare, Parallels, etc.
Box, containing base VM image, JSON-based metadata file identifying provider, and Vagrantfile
Vagrantfile, including basic configuration of the VM, base box, network and SSH setup, shared folders, provisioners, and provisioning scripts

8. Finding a Vagrant Box via Atlas

9. What You Can Do with Vagrant in Instructional Settings: Five Examples

10. Scotch Box
A fully configured LAMP stack, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQLite, node.js, and the Laravel framework for PHP installed and running.

11. Islandora

12. Islandora, Part 2

13. Omeka

14. Omeka, Part 2

15. Atom

16. Heritrix
Heritrix is a Web crawler designed for Web archiving. It was written by the Internet Archive, in Java. The main interface is accessible using a Web browser; there is a command-line tool that can also be used to initiate crawls.

17. Vagrant Share
Vagrant Share enables the user to share his or her VM via HTTP connections. See below. Vagrant Connect makes it possible to share access to a VM via SSH.

18. A Shared Vagrant Instance

19. How Docker Works
In this illustration, Kitematic is employed to access DockerHub and run locally installed containers.

20. Comparison: Linux Containers vs. VMs
Containers are isolated,
but share OS kernel and, where appropriate, bins/libraries
App A
App A’
App B
Bins/
Libs
Bins/
Libs
Bins/
Libs
…the result is faster deployment, greater disk space and memory efficiency, easier migration, security through isolation, etc. VM
Guest OS
Guest OS
Guest OS
Guest OS
Guest OS
App A
App A
App B
App B
App B
App B
Container
Hypervisor (Type 2)
Bins/Libs
Bins/Libs
Host OS
Host OS
Server
Server

21. Docker Hub: Build, Ship, Run Applications
DockerFile
Source Code Repository
Analytics DB
Prod Machine
Linux OS
Docker
Prod Machine
Linux OS
Docker
Prod Machine
Linux OS
Docker
Source
Users
Collab
Provenance
Policy
Docker Hub
Registries
Public
Curated
Private
Docker Hub API
Third Party Tools
Infrastructure Management
Physical
Docker
Ship
Build
Dev
Boot2Docker
Mac/Win Dev Machine VM
Docker VM
Docker VM
Docker
Docker
Docker
Infrastructure Management
Virtual QA
Linux OS
QA Machine
TEST
Run
GCE
RAX
Azure ++
Staging
Cloud
DockerHub provides a centralized resource for container image discovery, distribution and change management, user and team collaboration, and workflow automation

22. Four Examples of What You Can Do with Docker in Instructional Settings

23. Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat is a Java-based Web server. It is important in this context because it forms the basis for a number of key platforms, including DSpace, Fedora, and Islandora.

24. DSpace
DSpace is an open source repository software package typically used for creating open access repositories for scholarly and/or published digital content. Its design is focused on the long-term storage, access and preservation of digital content.

25. File Information Tool Set (FITS)

26. Webmin
Webmin is a Web-based system configuration tool for Unix-like systems, although recent versions can also be installed and run on Windows. Using any Web browser that supports tables and forms (and Java for the `File Manager` module), Webmin enables a user to administer a Linux or Unix system, e.g., setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing, etc., through a graphical user interface.

27. Building Vagrant Boxes and Dockerfiles
Creating Vagrant Boxes from Existing Installations
Creating Vagrant Boxes from Scratch with Packer
Using docker build and Dockerfiles to create containers
For example: docker build –t = "rethinkdb"

28. Summary and Conclusion
How effective Vagrant and Docker are as teaching tools depends, in the end, on the effectiveness of instructors and the dedication of students. But it seems reasonable to imagine, as this presentation has, that Vagrant and Docker can be used as the basis for instruction that allows learners, be they Master’s students or working professionals, to engage directly and easily with the platforms they use to deliver end-user services and understand how those platforms have been designed and constructed and how their administration affects an array of relevant matters, ranging from workflows to the satisfaction and the complaints of the users of such systems.