rst-docker-files

Docker is a virtualization program that utilizes containers instead of classic virtual machines. Docker allows us to use a base image for an OS and then add all the dependencies needed for the project. This way we can easily start with a fresh environment every time, but still have everything we need installed. After you install Docker for your platform, here is a brief example on how to use the Docker files that are set up for RST.

Ubuntu 14.04 example

Pull the base image from Dockerhub

docker pull ubuntu:14.04

Then we can move into our directory and build our custom image

cd ubuntu-14.04_docker
docker build -t ubuntu-14.04-rst-docker .

Our image will take awhile to build, but once completed, everytime the image is run there will be a fresh install of RST and all it's dependencies. We can git checkout any branches to test and compile. We can start a pseudo-tty in the image and execute a shell to run commands like so:

docker run -it ubuntu-14.04-rst-docker /bin/bash

When we are finished, we clean up our Docker containers with

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q -f status=exited)

Some systems require you to be root to run any Docker commands

More info on Docker can be found here and here.