docker-sbcl

An image based on OpenWrt x86_64 which runs SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp).

Quicklisp is installed in /opt/quicklisp. We provide different versions (tags) for different distributions of Quicklisp:

version x.y.z contains the corresponding sbcl version (built with build option 'fancy'), and the 'current' Quicklisp version (current at container build time) with no systems pre-installed
version x.y.z-YYYY-MM-DD contains sbcl x.y.z and Quicklisp YYYY-MM-DD, where all package archives are downloaded into the image

The latter image is large (400-500 MB) but contains all of Quicklisp, so no Internet connectivity is needed for quickloading systems.

Sources can be mounted into the image into /common-lisp.

Compiled files are cached in the directory /cache.

The userid of the sbcl process can be specified explicitly, groupid will be 0 (= root).

How to use

To have a consistent situation inside the container and on the host, on our development machines, we install Quicklisp in /opt/quicklisp (and set the env var QUICKLISP_HOME). We keep our source files in /common-lisp (with a symbolic link in ~/common-lisp and the cache location is /cache (with a link to ~/.cache). Then you can use the following command

docker run -it -v /common-lisp:/common-lisp -v /cache:/cache mcreations/sbcl

But it is perfectly possible to mount the usual locations of those dirs into the container image:

docker run -it -v $HOME/common-lisp:/common-lisp -v $HOME/.cache:/cache mcreations/sbcl

It is of course possible to override the quicklisp installation inside the container with the one which you have (e.g. from location ~/quicklisp):

docker run -it -v ~/quicklisp:/opt/quicklisp -v ~/common-lisp:/common-lisp -v ~/.cache:/cache mcreations/sbcl

User ID and Group ID

The sbcl process inside the container runs with UID 1000 (user name 'lisp') and GID 0. If you specify host volumes to be mounted inside the container, then you should set the env var RUN_AS to your own UID. The files which are created by sbcl will then have the correct user and group:

docker run -it -e RUN_AS=`id -u` -v ~/common-lisp:/common-lisp -v ~/.cache:/cache mcreations/sbcl

These directories have gid 0 and are group-writable inside the container:

/opt/quicklisp
/common-lisp
/cache

so, when you mount host volumes, make sure they are either writable by the UID in RUN_AS or by group root.

Environment variables

RUN_AS: see section 'User ID and Group ID'
QL_VERBOSE: if set, Quicklisp loading will be verbose (compile messages and warnings instead of printing dots to signify progress)

Readline support

When running the image interactively, you can use GNU readline history and editing capabilities.

Github Repo

https://github.com/m-creations/docker-sbcl

m-creations / docker-sbcl