Cannot run nodejs app and mongo within a docker container - node.js

Question

I'm setting up a container with the following Dockerfile
# Start with project/baseline
FROM project/baseline # => image with mongo / nodejs / sailsjs
# Create folder that will contain all the sources
RUN mkdir -p /var/project
# Load the configuration file and the deployment script
ADD init.sh /var/project/init.sh
ADD src/ /var/project/ # src contains a list of folder, each one being a sails app
# Compile the sources / run the services / run mongodb
CMD /var/project/init.sh
The init.sh script is called when the container runs.
It should start a couple of webapp and mongodb.
#!/bin/bash
PROJECT_PATH=/var/project
# Start mongodb
function start_mongo {
mongod --fork --logpath /var/log/mongodb.log # attempt to have mongo running in daemon
}
# Start services
function start {
for service in $(ls);do
cd $PROJECT_PATH/$service
npm start # Runs sails lift on each service
done
}
# start mongodb
start_mongo
# start web applications defined in /var/project
start
Basically, there is a couple of nodejs (sailsjs) application in /var/project.
When I run the container, I got the following message:
$ sudo docker run -t -i projects/test
about to fork child process, waiting until server is ready for connections.
forked process: 10
and then it remains stuck.
How can mongo and the sails processes can be started and the container to remain in a running state ?
UPDATE
I now use this supervisord.conf file
[supervisord]
nodaemon=false
[program:mongodb]
command=/usr/bin/mongod
[program:process1]
command=/bin/bash "cd /var/project/service1 && node app.js"
[program:process2]
command=/bin/bash "cd /var/project/service2 && node app.js"
it is called in the Dockerfile like:
# run the applications (mongodb + project related services)
CMD ["/usr/bin/supervisord"]
As my services are dependent upon mongo starting correctly, supervisord does not wait that long and the services are not started then. Any idea to solve that ?
By the way, it that a so best practice to use mongo in the same container ?
UPDATE 2
I went back to a service.sh script that is called when the container is running. I know this is not clean (but I'll say it's temporary so I can fix the pb I have in supervisor), but I'm doing the following:
run nohup mongod &
wait 60 sec
run my node (forever) processes
The thing is, the container exit right after the forever processes are ran... how can it be kept active ?

Answer 1

If you want to cleanly start multiple services inside a container, one option is to use a process supervisor of some sort. One option is documented here, in the official Docker documentation.
I've done something similar using runit. You can see my base runit image here, and a multi-service application image using that here.