Docker containers for automated OS setup, build config, compile, test, and install for GnuCash v3+ binaries and docs
Copyright (C) 2019 Dale Phurrough dale@hidale.com

1. You need a Docker host/engine on a Linux-based OS. Other host OS are not yet supported. Docker has free and easy instructions
2. Strongly recommend you have docker-compose installed
3. git clone this repo into a folder on your host

In the folder containing these files, run the following command. This will start a Ubuntu 18.04 container that will configure, compile, test, and install GnuCash all safely within the container.

docker-compose up -d ubuntu-18.04

You can view the progress using a well-known command like: docker logs gnucashbuild-ubuntu-18.04

Do you have a computer with X11 and allow remote X11 applications? If yes, you can run your newly compiled GnuCash with the following commands.

docker exec -ti gnucashbuild-ubuntu-18.04 bash # after this, you are inside the container
cd /opt/bin
export DISPLAY=mycomputer:0.0   # replace mycomputer with hostname or IP address
./gnucash

Prebuilt containers are on DockerHub as diablodale/gnucashbuilder:<OS_DIST_TAG> with the same names as in the docker-compose.yml. These containers are the built Dockerfiles. You could use these to docker run a fresh compile, test, and/or install of GnuCash.

# examples pulling three of the prebuilt containers from DockerHub
docker pull diablodale/gnucashbuilder:centos-7
docker pull diablodale/gnucashbuilder:debian-10
docker pull diablodale/gnucashbuilder:ubuntu-18.04

The Dockerfiles (or pulled containers from DockerHub) can be used direct with docker run or more easily with docker-compose. The docker-compose.yml included is configured for major releases of Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, CentOS, Fedora, and openSUSE Linux. Use the same Quick Start command above with any of the OS in the file.

You can automate the install and have it appear on any desktop running X11 by setting GNC_PHASES and DISPLAY. Inspect this file to see how new operating systems can be added or options changed to meet your needs.

docker-compose documentation can help you better understand. Naturally, you are welcome to hack docker-compose.yml. These are the build arguments and environment variables specific to this solution.

By default, each container has its own private copy of the OS, build tools, GnuCash source files, compiled code, and test files. Docker has easy methods to mount host files/folders into the container.

You can store and manage your GnuCash source files on your host and mount them into the container so that container can compile them.

• Builds always occur from the container's /gnucash folder. It should contain the GnuCash source code.
• The GnuCash build process requires read+write access to this /gnucash folder.
• The GnuCash build process alters/create some files in the source code folder. You may encounter difficult to isolate issues if you mount the same source code folder into multiple containers and simultaneously compile.

# docker-compose.yml
volumes:
    - /home/user1/source/gnucash:/gnucash

# bash
docker run -v /home/user1/source/gnucash:/gnucash gnucashbuild:ubuntu-16.04

You can receive the result of the build process on your host. This is done by mounting a folder on your host into the container at /build.

• Builds results always go to the container's /build folder.
• The GnuCash build process requires read+write access to this /build folder.
• The GnuCash build process substantially alters this folder. You may encounter difficult to isolate issues if you mount the same build folder into multiple containers and simultaneously compile.

# docker-compose.yml
volumes:
    - /home/user1/build/gnucash:/build

# bash
docker run -v /home/user1/build/gnucash:/build gnucashbuild:ubuntu-16.04

• docker-compose file version 2.4 enables several of the below features
• init: true provides a init process handler for clean Linux startup/shutdown
• tty: true and stdin_open: true are set to support running bash at the end of the Linux build process
• VS Code Remote Development works well with this Docker setup.