forkliftcontainer 0.2.0

Container friendly text-only curses utility (local and ssh usage)

Forklift - Text based utility for dealing with containers

What is this for

This is a simple and handy text based GUI utility for dealing with boring and repetitive tasks while managing containers.
If you usually manage them in your daily activities you'll surely deal a lot with the CLI and execute repetitive commands for: building images, creating containers, running, killing and stopping them all the time.

It doesn't really matter if you are a Developer, a DevOps or a SRE; most of your time might be spent on the CLI for deleting/respawning/starting new instances for your favorite product.
You can surely do it from a GUI or editor (vscode, eclipse, ...) but it might be messy if you're managing them remotely through SSH and all you have at your disposal is just your trusty text-only shell connection.

That's the reason for this simple, quick, text-only curses based utility, no matter if containers are running on a remote machine, locally or if you prefer a specific Window Manager. I expressly don't want to rely on X11/Wayland, infinite dependencies (or keep them to the bare minimum) and it has to be text-only and usable from a remote shell.
This utility relies on: python (+yaml) and curses bindings (just plain curses, no extra widgets required).
It is not a fully fledged solution but rather a small and quick tool for running boring tasks, you'll still use docker/podman of your choice but you don't want to be annoyed by usual and repetitive commands (docker ps -a; docker kill <ID>; docker start <ID> <params, ...>). That's what this utility is about.

Rolling demo overview

https://github.com/andreabenini/podmaster/assets/9632086/25064afe-f242-4686-9e5a-071f78af4590

Features

• Basic container images management: create (manually/script), rename, delete
• Container management: create, run, attach, stop, kill, rename, log
• Running locally or on a remote SSH connection, text only, no GUI required
• Curses based GUI utility with just a few keys: cursor arrows, enter, escape
• NOT related to Kubernetes, orchestrators or pods, just "simple" containers.
  Targeted to personal workstations and workflows, no matter if local or on a remote ssh shell
• python-curses is the only requirement (but yaml), no extra deps, no curses library widgets. Everything builtin and self contained in the project
• .yaml based project configuration and user setup
• Container engine independent, tested on: docker, podman. LXD might be the next if someone requires it
• Build images and container from within the utility, ContainerCommander like style

Usage:

# program help
~$ forklift --help
usage: forklift [-h] [-p PATH]

Forklift: friendly utility for dealing with containers

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PATH, --path PATH  System and user configuration files path (default: /where/this/utility/is/stored)

# As simple as:
~$ forklift
# Or add '--path' argument to specify where yaml config files are stored
#     default is set on program current location (see --help for details)
~$ forklift --path $HOME/container_configs

• Arrows keys to navigate
• <enter> to confirm, <esc> to abort commands

Installation and configuration

• Requirements: 'python3', 'yaml' and 'python curses' are required, nothing else. There's no need for a VirtualEnv
• Installation methods:
  • From source the official repository, this site. Clone the repo or download sources from there
  • from pip:

    pip install forklift
    

• Edit the configuration file system.yaml and change it accordingly to your favorite container management utility, default: podman, change it to docker if needed
• [optional] Create your containers.yaml and images.yaml files to have working templates while using the utility. You can create and edit them externally from the shell or automatically while using the program. These two samples are provided as a reference: containers.yaml.sample, images.yaml.sample. Future upgrades will never replace your working configuration.

  # optional, up to you, feel free to create or add info to yours
  cp containers.yaml.sample containers.yaml
  cp images.yaml.sample     images.yaml
  

• Start the program and you're ready to go, feel free to store it wherever you prefer

  ~$ forklift
  

Contributing

Feel free to raise issues, pull requests and suggest improvements. It's a ready made utility but it can be enhanced and new features might be added with your contribution.