We started using Chef a while ago and one of the first steps we took was to use Docker instead of Vagrant for performing tests due to its faster setup.
After all this time I can say it was a nice experience and now our CI is happily testing out in minutes. So…
What do you need?
Basically, you need to install the latest ChefDK where the gem kitchen-dokken is installed by default. This gem enables lightweight tooling to use Docker containers for executing Kitchen.
Setup
After that, you just need to set up your kitchen.yml to use dokken as a driver like so:
---
driver:
name: dokken
chef_version: latest
transport:
name: dokken
provisioner:
name: dokken
...
The transport and the provisioner are set to dokken so the kitchen will use the lighter tooling from the driver. Then you can set up your platform to test your cookbooks:
- name: ubuntu-16.04
driver:
image: ubuntu:16.04
pid_one_command: /bin/systemd
intermediate_instructions:
- RUN /usr/bin/apt-get update
Considerations
- Docker is designed for isolating and packaging processes that run as the only process inside a container.
If your cookbook setup services you may need to choose a complete Docker base image that normally is bigger in size, also you need to explicitly start the system daemon (such assystemd) as you saw on the code snippet earlier. - Do not try to run Docker inside a container. If your cookbook uses Docker somehow is better to use Vagrant instead because then you may need to manually set up the container to host docker and that is a pain.
