Deploying FME Server with Docker Compose

As a multi-container application, FME Server supports deployment with Docker Compose. We recommend deploying FME Server this way only if you have worked with Docker before and understand its architecture.

Limitations and Considerations

When deciding if you want to deploy FME Server with Docker Compose, keep in mind the following:

  • Container deployments of FME Server are built on Linux. Review our FME formats matrix and compare by platforms to see if the formats you plan to use are available on Linux. In particular:
    • Certain Esri formats cannot be used in a Docker deployment due to operating system compatibility. For integrating Esri formats with FME Server, we recommend installing FME Server on Windows machines and not using containers. Esri integrations with ArcPy/ArcGIS Pro require Windows libraries. ArcGIS Server for Linux is not a usable alternative.
    • Database formats (such as SQL Server) require the JDBC version of the format, which may require workspace modification if publishing from FME Desktop on Windows.

    • To use third-party libraries, JDBC drivers, and similar requires creating your own FME Server engine container image.

  • FME Server deployed with Docker Compose is not supported on the following Linux distributions due to an incompatibility with the Linux kernel version used by these distributions:
    • CentOS 7
    • Red Hat Enterprise 7

    Oracle Linux 7 is supported only if the default Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is used.

  • Adding FME Engines on a Separate Machine that is not containerized is not tested, supported, or recommended by Safe Software. It is not possible to use this architecture to add FME Engines on a Windows VM to a Docker deployment of FME Server for format compatibility.

About the Docker Compose File for FME Server

Services

The Compose file defines containers for each of the services that comprise FME Server. These service names can be specified to start, stop, scale, or run other commands on a specific container. They are also used as the host names for the containers to communicate with each other.

Service

Description
fmeservercore FME Server Core
fmeserverwebsocket WebSocket Server
fmeserverweb FME Server Web Services
fmeserverdb FME Server Database
fmeserverengine FME Engines
fmeserverqueue

Queue Control

Note: The preferred method for assigning FME Engines to queues is through the ENGINEPROPERTIES FME Engine Container environment variable.
nginx Reverse proxy for FME Server; receives all web traffic and forwards it to the right container. Also responsible for handling the https connection.

See Also

Ports

The FME Server deployment maps three ports to the host machine:

Once FME Server is deployed, any requests to these ports on the host machine are routed to the proper container. This means you can access the FME Server Web User Interface on port 443 of your host machine even though the fmeserverweb service is actually running inside a container.

Volumes

The Compose file defines two main volumes:

  • Database - Where the fmeserverdb service stores its database files.
  • FME Server System Share - Actually comprised of several volumes that restrict access to certain folders from containers that do not require it.

Deploying and Administering FME Server on Docker Compose

Download the Docker Compose File for FME Server

Docker Compose files are available at https://www.safe.com/support/downloads/ for each available tag (version) of the FME Server container deployment.

Working with the docker-compose Command

Use the docker-compose command to create, start, and stop FME Server. This command looks in the current directory for a file named docker-compose.yaml, and uses that for the definition of what to deploy. Alternatively, you can pass in a path to a compose file using the -f parameter. Example commands below assume that a docker-compose.yaml exists in the current working directory.

To Launch a New FME Server Stack

Use the up parameter to bring up a new set of containers as defined in docker-compose.yaml. Pass in the -d parameter to run in the background.

docker-compose up -d

Docker Compose creates the networks, volumes and containers defined in the Compose file. When complete, you can connect to the FME Server Web User Interface on https://localhost/. The administrator user name and password defaults to admin and admin, respectively. You can change this on the Users page.

To Launch a New FME Server Stack with a Dynamic Engine (CPU Usage) License

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml -f docker-compose-dynamic-engine.yaml up -d

To Stop a Running FME Server

docker-compose stop

To Start FME Server

docker-compose start

To Restart FME Server

docker-compose restart

To Specify Services in the Compose File

You can specify the Services defined in the Compose file to start and stop. For example, to stop just the FME Server Web Services container:

docker-compose stop fmeserverweb

To Scale FME Engines

You can scale the number of running engines by launching additional FME Engines containers. (For more information, see Configuring the Number of FME Engines to Start.)

Use the scale command to specify the number of FME Engines you want after the command executes. The following command scales the number of engines to 4:

docker-compose up --scale fmeserverengine=4

To Remove an FME Server Deployment

The down command destroys all containers, volumes and networks that were created in the stack. The -v parameter removes the volumes as well.

docker-compose down -v

Without the -v parameter, the Database and FME Server System Share volumes are not destroyed, and if the same stack were launched again using up, no data would be lost.

To Upgrade an FME Server Deployment

Note: See also Upgrading to a Patch Build in Docker.

  1. Make a local backup of FME Server on the Backup & Restore page of the Web User Interface. Make sure this file is saved somewhere outside of the FME Server Resources folders, as those will be removed.
  2. Remove the containers, volumes and networks.

    3. docker-compose down -v

  3. Download the latest version of the containers.

    4. docker-compose pull

  4. Deploy the new version of the containers.

    5. docker-compose up -d

  5. Restore your backup on the Backup & Restore page of the Web User Interface by uploading the backup file you saved in step 1.

To Run Multiple FME Servers on One Machine

While not recommended for production machines, running multiple FME Server stacks on a single machine may be useful if you are prototyping or testing workflows on multiple versions of FME Server.

When running multiple FME Servers on the same machine, keep in mind the following:

  • When launching a stack, docker-compose prepends a project name, separated by an underscore, to all the containers, volumes and networks. The project name defaults to the name of the working directory when the stack is created. In the image below, the stack was launched in a directory named server, so server_ is prepended to all the resources created:

    • If the docker-compose.yml files for each deployment are not in directories with different names, you can pass in a project name when launching the stack with the -p flag:

    docker-compose -p projectname up -d

  • Since a few Ports are mapped to the host machine, the same port cannot be used twice. You must either make sure only one is started at a time, or change the port mappings. For example, to use port 8080 instead of 443, delete the redirect port 80:8080 from the fmeserverweb container with this command:

    • EXTERNALPORT=8080 docker-compose up -d

    This sets the external port on all relevant containers to 8080 and brings up FME Server.

To Disable https

To run FME Server without https:

  1. Remove the exposed port 80 from the nginx container in the Docker Compose file (line 80:8080).
  2. Start the FME Server with WEBPROTOCOL=http and EXTERNALPORT=80 variables. For example:

    3. WEBPROTOCOL=http EXTERNALPORT=80 docker-compose up -d

To Use a Custom TLS/SSL Certificate

WARNING: Ensure a copy of the certificate is stored in a different location before mounting it in the nginx container. The code in the container may have untested "edge" cases that overwrite the certificate.

To use a valid SSL certificate, make the following files available in a directory on the FME Server host:

  • nginx.crt: The certificate, including full certificate chain, if necessary.
  • nginx.key: Private key used to generate the certificate.

Once provided, pass in the location to the certificate and key by setting the SSLCERTLOCATION=/path/to/certificates variable.

See Also