Setup with labels

[Biepa]

Hey, somehow I seem to miss something important here.
Downloaded dockcheck.sh, added the labels

    labels:
      mag37.dockcheck.update: true
      mag37.dockcheck.restart-stack: true

to one of my compose files.
But running dockcheck.sh -l still shows me all of my docker containers, not just the one I added the labels.

I would appreciate some help to get it working.

[mag37]

You've set it up correctly. Though I'd avoid using the mag37.dockcheck.restart-stack: true if it's not necessary. Readme:

works instead of the -f option, forcing stop+restart on the whole compose-stack (Caution: Will restart on every updated container within stack.)

And while you've set it up correctly - it's current action is to check/list updates for all containers, but only pull+apply on the ones with the label set.

This was initially to be able to run a "auto all" but control which will get auto updated with labels.

If a different use case is of interest I could look into modifying or extending with another label in the future. And if I should clarify the readme, I'd happily receive suggestions on phrasing.

[Biepa]

Hi @mag37 and thank you for the reply.

For my use case.
I want to replace watchtowerr and searched for a simple solution to update specific (non-critical) containers automatically for me without any interaction.
That's why I checked the label option.

I don't have an issue with the script checking all containers for updates, though not needed in my opinion.
What made me open this discussion was me being confused as the output of dockcheck.sh -l is not indicating that it's making use of the label option. The output shows me a list of all updated and not updated containers with optiosn for "a - update all" or "q - quit". So no way to know for me that only the labeled ones are getting updated.

My suggestion to make this more clear would be to print a message saying the label option is used and which containers are therefore considered to be checked for an update and not showing the non-labeled containers.

Thank you for creating this.

[mag37]

Thank you for the explanation and your reasoning! Very valuable to understand what the user sees.

I agree that the label-option lack indication and information about what's happening! Good point.
Indeed - some clearer output is needed.

• A message saying something like "Label option used - only containers with label set will be updated".
• An indicator by the container name in the list - that it has the label set (and will be updated).
• Or filter the whole run on only the labeled containers - check + pull + apply only if label is set.

I think the most sensible approach would be to make the whole run act on the label setting, to not cause confusion and also give a message about that the label-option is in action.

I've not yet had time to dig into the code or do any testing, I'll try to find time after the weekend.

[Biepa]

Thank you for the response. Sounds good to me.
Take your time 👍

[mag37]

There's a branch created for the label rework. I've moved the logic up a bit - to the actual check for updates - that way it'll only check and list labeled containers. I've removed it from the other sections (pull+apply) as the containers will be skipped in the check phase hence not listed.

Though it'll count them all in the progress-bar, as that's prior to any inspection of the container, but will just logically skip the non-labeled.

If you'd like to try it out, I'd happily receive feedback - here's the branch:
https://github.com/mag37/dockcheck/tree/label_rework

Edit: I might rephrase the current info message - it's currently:

Label option set: Only checking containers with labels set.

Maybe it should be Label option active: ... or something,

[Biepa]

Thank you for adding that. Working as I would expect.

I agree with "Label option active" or similar is more understandable than "Label option set".

Two things I noticed.

1. As I run dockcheck now for the first time and only for specific containers, "Would you like to prune dangling images? y/[n]:" could be understood to be only for the labeled ones (I wondered why it took so long. I had 20GB of dangling images on the whole system 😅 ).
   If there is nothing against it, adjusting it to "Would you like to prune all dangling images? y/[n]:" in that output would make that clear.

2. After I tested with one container I added the label to two more containers. But dockcheck.sh didn't saw them in the next run as I haven't restarted the containers. I get the reason but noticed it may or may not be something less technical users could miss. Not sure if it's worth a note in the readme or so.

Thank you for this change. 👍

[mag37]

Thank you for testing it!

And good input, adding the "all" is probably sensible - as its not tied to the current run really.
Indeed, easy thing to miss but also - if you work with compose files you would hopefully know that all changes to it requires a restart of the container to take effect. Wouldn't hurt to add it to the readme though! Good suggestion.

Edit:

Did some tweaks to the messaging (other than adding the "all" to prune).

# old:
-l     Only update if label is set. See readme.
# new:
-l     Only include containers with label set. See readme.

# old:
- `mag37.dockcheck.update: true` will when used with the `-l` option only update containers with this label and skip the rest. Will still list updates as usual.
# new:
- `mag37.dockcheck.update: true` will when used with the `-l` option only check and update containers with this label set and skip the rest.

# Added to the readme:
Adding or modifying labels in compose-files requires a restart of the container to take effect.

[Biepa]

Yeah, should be clear with compose files, but it's not hurting anyone.

[mag37]

Merged to main - thank you for raising the issue and suggesting the direction!

[Biepa]

Thank you for taking the feedback and the implemention. I'll need to set this up now on a few systems now 👍

[mag37]

My line of thought with labels were like

• Run cronjob A with labels and auto-update specific noncritical containers.
• Run cronjob B without labels to iterate over all containers and send notifications about available updates.

Though you can also create a cronjob filtering specific containers as a comma separated list.
Like dockcheck.sh homer,forgejo,dozzle,nginx
Or exclude with -e.

[Biepa]

Thank you for the suggestions. Will check that out.