Docker Demo Image

A Docker container demo is provided for each nPrintML release to aid prospective users in trying out the tool.

Note: The container is intended for users of as-yet-unsupported platforms and users of atypically-configured systems. nPrintML should install easily for most users, as described in the preceding section; and, for day-to-day use, it is strongly recommended that nPrintML be installed without virtualization. nPrintML users requiring support in installing the tool should consult the project’s homepage and then consider reaching out for help. Users of unsupported platforms should consider creating a feature request or a pull request.

Dependencies

The container demo requires Docker.

Usage

The container entrypoint is the nprintml command, and as such takes the same arguments:

docker run [...] ghcr.io/nprint/nprintml ...

Note, however, that any argument references to the host filesystem must be mapped to the container filesystem. For this reason, the nprintml-docker script is recommended.

Demo script

The nprintml-docker script is the recommended interface to the container demo. Argument references to the host filesystem are mapped and rewritten for the container filesystem; outputs are written to the host filesystem and given user ownership, etc.

nprintml-docker requires Python v3.6 or greater.

The script is available for download from the nPrintML repository. It may be placed anywhere on your system, and made executable or invoked with either python or python3.

A reasonable installation of the script (globally) might include the following:

DEST="/usr/local/bin"

curl --output-dir="$DEST" -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nprint/nprintML/main/image/nprintml-docker

chmod +x "$DEST"/nprintml-docker

The script should then be available for execution, even without reference to its full path, (so long as DEST above is itself in your environment’s PATH):

nprintml-docker ...

Note: In the above example, the script is installed to the system globally. This will likely require root permission – e.g. sudo curl … and sudo chmod ….

Alternatively, set a different DEST. The script may be placed wherever you have write access – including user directories which are also commonly placed on PATH: $HOME/.local/bin, $HOME/bin, etc.

If DEST is not on PATH, the script may be invoked via its full download path, e.g.:

~/Downloads/nprintml-docker ...

And if the script is not made executable, it may be invoked via any available python (v3.6+):

python ~/Downloads/nprintml-docker ...

Environment variables

The script’s interface is forwarded to nprintml within the demo container. The script itself may be configured via the following environment variables.

* default value