Docker

Docker is a platform for shipping applications in an isolated environment known as a container.

Deploying to Docker essentially means running a model inside a Docker Container locally.

Requirements

$ pip install mlem[docker]
# or
$ pip install docker

Description

Deploying to a docker container involves 2 main steps:

1. Build docker image by running docker build under the hood.
2. Start the server inside the image by running docker run under the hood.

One can do this via a single line:

$ mlem deploy run docker_container deployment.mlem -m model
💾 Saving deployment to deployment.mlem
⏳️ Loading model from model.mlem
🛠 Creating docker image mlem-deploy-1666728279
  🛠 Building MLEM wheel file...
  💼 Adding model files...
  🛠 Generating dockerfile...
  💼 Adding sources...
  💼 Generating requirements file...
  🛠 Building docker image mlem-deploy-1666728279:latest...
  ✅  Built docker image mlem-deploy-1666728279:latest
✅  Container mlem-deploy-1666728455 is up

Checking the docker image and container

One can check the docker image built via docker image ls which should give the following output:

REPOSITORY               TAG      IMAGE ID       CREATED          SIZE
mlem-deploy-1666728279   latest   fad02f76dbed   19 seconds ago   734MB
...

and the running container with docker container ls:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                           COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS          PORTS     NAMES
0aa976159580   mlem-deploy-1666728279:latest   "/bin/sh -c 'sh run.…"   26 seconds ago   Up 25 seconds             mlem-deploy-1666728455
...

Configurable parameters

A lot of parameters can be configured, the full list of which can be accessed using mlem deploy run docker_container -h.

Example: running REST API service from CLI

$ mlem deploy run docker_container app.mlem \
    --model model \
    --server fastapi \
    --ports.0 8080:8080

You can specify other servers to use. Note that --ports.0 exposes port 8080 outside of the container. Each server typically exposes some specific port. You can check the default port by running mlem serve $SERVER --help.

For some server implementations (like FastAPI) you can also set change the default listening port. The below command shows how to modify the listening port to 5000 and than map it on the host network directly on the same port:

$ mlem deploy run docker_container app.mlem \
    --model model \
    --server fastapi \
    --ports.0 5000:5000 \
    --server.port 5000

Please note that when running in a docker container, you usually shouldn't care about the server internal listening port and can use --ports to expose the server to any port to the host network, e.g. --ports.0 8080:5000.

Also, keep in mind that the param name in --server.$PARAM that controls the port can be different for different server implementations. Use mlem serve $SERVER --help to find out the right one.