How to serve static files from a Dockerized Python web app?

Question

I have a Python web application that sits behind Nginx, and is served via Gunicorn.

I have configured it so that Nginx servers static files directly from the disk and it only talks to Gunicorn for static assets such as images.

My questions:

1. Is it a good idea or a big "no" to dockerize the web app together with static assets?

2. If I want to deploy my container in 2 servers, which need access to same assets, how can I make the static assets portable just like the containerized app?

What I'd like to have if possible:

I'd like to put my app in a container and I would like to make it as portable as possible, without spending more funds on additional resources such as a separate server to keep the images (like a DB)

Answer 1

If you know your app will always-and-forever have the same static assets, then just containerize them with the app and be done with it.

But things change, so when you need it I would recommend a Docker Volume Container approach: put your static assets in a DVC and mount that DVC in the main container so it's all pretty much "just one app container". You could use Docker Compose something like this:

appdata:
    image: busybox
    volumes:
        - /path/to/app/static
    command: echo "I'm just a volume container"
app:
    build: .
    volumes_from:
        - appdata
    command: …

You can expand further by starting your container with a bootstrap script that copies initial static files into the destination path on startup. That way your app is guaranteed to always have a default set to get started, but you can add more static files as the app grows. For an example of this, pull the official Jenkins container and read /usr/local/bin/jenkins.sh.