[Request]: Add auto-start functionality on boot and container auto-start.

[Phfebb]

Feature or enhancement request details

Does it not have the auto-start function upon booting up?

(edit: see also related #286 for restart policy for individual containers, the features complement one another so both would be nice to have)

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[x8x]

Meanwhile this works:

1. Create your custom container

container system start
container run -d --name nginx nginx

2. Create your 'auto-start' file, ex: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/user.nginx.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
    "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
	<dict>
		<key>Label</key>
		<string>user.nginx</string>
		<key>ProgramArguments</key>
		<array>
		    <string>/usr/bin/script</string>
			<string>-q</string>
			<string>/dev/null</string>
			<string>/bin/sh</string>
			<string>-c</string>
			<string>/usr/local/bin/container system start && sleep 3 && /usr/local/bin/container start nginx</string>
		</array>
		<key>RunAtLoad</key>
		<true />
		<key>KeepAlive</key>
		<false />
		<key>StandardOutPath</key>
		<string>/tmp/container.log</string>
		<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
		<string>/tmp/container.log</string>
	</dict>
</plist>

3. Reboot

[jglogan]

This should probably be split into separate issues as they are distinct features:

• Add restart policy for containers ([Request]: Add support for --restart flag for run #286).
• Start container automatically when the system boots.
• Start container automatically when I log in.

[jglogan]

@Phfebb OK if I modify the title to just "Add auto-start functionality on boot" since container restart policy is covered by #286?

[Phfebb]

OK if I modify the title to just "Add auto-start functionality on boot" since container restart policy is covered by #286?

ok

[goranche]

I liked the temporary "solution" @x8x provided above, but wanted something a bit more flexible, so expanded on it.

I wrote a script that starts the container system up, and then iterates over containers that have a label named "restart" with the value "boot".
The plist for launchd can be found here, but needs to be updated with the correct path for your system.

After that, place the plist file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents and either use launchctl to load and enable it (I can't say I fully understand how, so I just => ) or reboot your system.
(however, after a reboot, you can run the script using launchctl start com.apple.container.launch 🤷‍♂️ )

This is of course far from ideal, and meant as @x8x said, "meanwhile ...". This is why I'm not even thinking of merging it upstream, don't think it makes sense 😊

note: jq is required and must be installed.

known issues: there are some issues with container itself. if you start a running container it'll stop it and throw an error 🤔 this obviously occurs only if you run the script manually

[tcarlson25]

Any update on this?

[saehejkang]

This should probably be split into separate issues as they are distinct features:

I will take a look into all three of these issues, as they seem to be highly requested