Running InfoPrint Manager for Linux in a Docker container

When you configure a virtual operating system to run in a Docker container, make sure that you follow the same considerations as when you configure it on a physical system. InfoPrint Manager can run using the following base Docker containers:

  • Red Hat Universal Base Images
  • AlmaLinux Base Images.

File system configuration planning

Ricoh recommends that the file systems be mounted as volumes in the Docker container. You must create these volumes before installing InfoPrint Manager. InfoPrint Manager mounted file systems include:

  • /var/lib/pd
  • /var/pd
  • /var/pddir
  • /var/psf
  • /var/psf/segments
  • /var/RICOH/Cloud Connector
    Important:
  • Since during initial system installation (docker compose create command) the Docker container does not have access to the external volumes, a manual step is needed in order to copy the folder structure created by the InfoPrint Manager installer to a temporary local folder.
  • When the container is started for the first time with the above-mentioned volumes mounted, the backed-up folder structure must be restored to the mounted volumes.
  • This procedure must be run every time an InfoPrint Manager update is applied to the system.

If your InfoPrint Manager installation drives printers that use either the CUPS, BSD, or PSFOther device support systems (DSSs), make sure that you synchronize the /etc/cups directory with a separate Docker image. Even though these are Linux system files and not InfoPrint Manager files, InfoPrint Manager uses data to these files that is critical to ensuring that certain printers appear after the container re-initialization. If this directory is not persistent, certain InfoPrint Manager actual destination objects may have to be deleted and redefined each time you upgrade the container.