Running VMPlaceS in a Docker container

This guide will cover the following points:

  • Installation of Docker
  • Creating a VMPlaceS image
  • Running a simulation

I- Installation of Docker

Download Docker community edition at the following URL:

II- Installation of VMPlaceS

First, clone the git repository of VMPlaceS:

Then, browse in the VMPlaceS folder and run the following command in order to build an image that will be used for containers that will host VMPlaceS simulations:

It should take 5 to 10 minutes to prepare the docker image.

To validate the image creation process, check that the following command

produces an output similar to this:

III- Running a simulation

Instantiate a container based on the previously created image:

and run VMPlaceS:

IV- Tips

Setup a shared folder between the host and the containers

It is possible to use a shared folder between docker containers and the physcial host. It may help to extract from containers the events.json file. To do, do the following:

Docker will create a volume, mount it on the physical node. Each modification made by the container or the host, will be visible by the other computer. Thus to enable the host to access events.json files, just copy it from the container to the mounted volume.

Rebuild the VMPlaceS image (to take into code changes)

Add the --no-cache to the docker build command, as in the following command: