A Docker image for Nikola with Org mode

This is a Docker image for the Nikola static web site generator, that includes the plugins and dependencies necessary to author sites in Emacs with Org Mode

This image is based on the Nikola image provided by Olaf Meuwissen (see here) and adds emacs, git, and the Nikola orgmode plugin

You can pull the image from the docker hub registry with

docker pull abellmann/nikola-orgmode

Please note that the image does not have a default command set. Also note that the image uses /bin/sh rather than /bin/bash.

Image Versions

The above command will pull the latest image. Images tagged with the upstream version used in the build are available as well. An image tagged with 7.8.7 was built using Nikola version 7.8.7. Have a look at the docker hub registry to see what's available.

Using the Image

I am using this Image on a Windows 7 system with cygwin and docker toolbox installed. If your setup differs, your usage may differ. Please also have a look at the documentation of the base image for instructions on MacOs

Important: The docker toolbox only replicates the User Home directory. This means, that your Nikola site should be checked out into a directory below the User Directory.

Assuming your Nikola site lives in the current directory and your current directory is inside your user home directory, you can use something like

docker run -it -v $PWD:/site -w /site abellmann/nikola-orgmode /bin/sh

to start a container. Your site will be volume mounted on /site, which is also the working directory inside the container.

On Windows, the Nikola database file (.doit.db) cannot be in a mounted directory or the nikola build will fail. So the first time you start the container, you should create a symlink for this file.

You will need permissions on your Windows Hosts to create symbolic links. A guide on setting up permission for symlinks with Virtualbox is here

>pwd
/site
>ln -s /tmp/.doit.db

Once in the container, you can use the regular nikola commands to maintain your site interactively. Of course, you can also start up a container for a one-off nikola command. For example

docker run -it -v $PWD:/site -w /site abellmann/nikola-orgmode nikola check -l

Serving your Site locally

Want to proofread your site? No problem! You can use nikola's serve command for this. It serves your site on port 8000 by default but you have to expose that container port in order to make it accessible from the outside. That goes like this (note the -p option)

docker run -it -v $PWD:/site -w /site abellmann/nikola-orgmode -p 8000:8000 nikola serve

Now you can browse your site at http://192.168.99.100:8000 (192.168.99.100 is the default ip of your docker machine. Change the ip address accordingly , if your docker machine has a different ip address).

Use Ctrl+C to shut down the container process.

Using docker-compose

You can use docker compose to simplify the startup of the container. Just create a docker-compose.yml in your Nikola sites root directory similar to the following:

version: '3'
services:
  nikola-orgmode:
    image: abellmann/nikola-orgmode
    ports:
      - 8000:8000
    volumes:
      - .:/site
    # open interactive shell
    stdin_open: true
    tty: true
    # default directory..
    working_dir: /site

You can then start your container in your site directory with

docker-compose run --service-ports nikola-orgmode

This will start an interactive shell. You can run nikola serve in this shell and see your site at http://192.168.99.100:8000

Notes

Nikola needs internet access. If you are behind a proxy, you need to configure it inside the container.