SiteHost

Creating and Managing a Container

Overview

Once you've got a Cloud Container server up and running, you're ready to start provisioning containers onto it. The SiteHost Control Panel allows you to take control over most features the Cloud Containers offer. This article will guide you through the most basic tasks you may need to perform to deploy your application successfully using Cloud Containers.

Creating a Container

To begin creating a container, follow the simple steps below:

  1. When logged in to the SiteHost Control Panel, click the Containers module from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the Add Container option in the upper right corner of the page.
  3. Choose which type of image you would like your container to run. You can browse through the Web Image, Service Image, Application Image, Integrated Image and Custom Image tabs to select the type.
  4. Click the drop-down list for the image type you want to use and select the ideal version for your application.
  5. Fill in the Website Address or Container Label field with as required. If you have chosen an Integrated Image, this section will be automatically filled in for you.
  6. Check the Server drop-down list and pick the correct server you wish to deploy the container in.
  7. Hit the Next Step button.
  8. Type in the SSH Username and SSH Password fields. You can optionally tick to select an SSH Key you have added to your account previously.

    SSH users cannot be created for Integrated Containers.

The following steps depend on the image type you've selected. For instance, if you are deploying using a Web Image you would probably like to:

  • Choose the MySQL Version from the drop-down list.
  • Fill in the Database Name, Database User and Database Password with the desired details.
  • Select if you want us to create DNS settings automatically.
  • Click Deploy Container and check the deployment progress presented in the page header.

    If the MySQL version you want is greyed out, ensure that there is an Integreated Container active for that version.

If you are deploying using a Service Image you would probably like to:

  • Choose the Port number and Protocol conveniently. Tick the correspondent Publish check box if you require the port to be publicly accessible.
  • Set Environment Variables filling in the Name and Value text fields.
  • Click Deploy Container and check the deployment progress presented in the page header.

Integrated Containers

Integrated Containers are default services that we provide as part of our Cloud Container platform. These containers help you to easily create databases for your applications to use and to also view/manage them through a Web Browser without having to worry about configuring these yourself. They do not add to your total image and container count and each Cloud Container Server can have one container for each of the Integrated Images.

Since they are part of our Cloud Container platform, we limit certain interactions that you would normally have in comparison to Web, Service or Application containers. For example, setting Aliases, Environment Variables and Ports have been removed and we also don't allow you to SSH into them. All you need to worry about is ensuring that an Integrated Container exists for services you want to use for your applications.

Rebooting and Shutting Down a Container

You can easily shut down or reboot your containers, please consider the steps below in order to do this:

  1. When logged in to the SiteHost Control Panel, click the Containers module from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the Container Label from the list to open the Container management page.
  3. Click the Reboot or Shut Down options in the upper right corner of the page as required.
  4. Hit the Reboot Container or Shut Down Container buttons to confirm the action.

Rebooting or shutting down a container will cause disruption to any services this container provides.

Graphs and Statistics

In some situations you may wish to monitor some of the key metrics of your Containers such as CPU and Memory utilization or the amount of incoming or outgoing traffic. Here follows the steps to check these metrics graphs:

  1. When logged in to the SiteHost Control Panel, click the Containers module from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the Container Label from the list to open the Container management page.
  3. Browse to the Graphs tab.

The graphs will automatically update every minute, so there is no need to reload the page.

The default view will display the last hour of activity for a container. This can be adjusted using the dropdown list in the upper right corner of each graph.

Hovering over areas of a graph will display the exact values for each series. Dragging on a section of a graph will allow you to zoom in for a closer inspection of the selected area. To reset the zoom level, simply click the magnifying glass icon.

Removing a Container

When you've decided that you no longer need a Container anymore, follow these steps to delete it:

  1. When logged in to the SiteHost Control Panel, click the Containers module from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the Container Label you want to delete from the list to open this Container management page.
  3. Click the Delete options in the upper right corner of the page.
  4. Hit the Delete Container button to confirm the action.

Removing a container will permanently delete all data along with the container. Be aware that all databases on a MySQL Integrated Container will be deleted.