lawndoc / lawndoc/stack-back

Hostname support for backup container

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#104 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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bug
Dominant language
Python
Stars
180
Forks
12
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Hi 👋 ,

currently, stack-back identifies its own container by checking if the container ID starts with the hostname:

if container_data.get("Id").startswith(socket.gethostname()):
    self.this_container = Container(container_data)

This works fine when using Docker's default behavior (hostname = container ID prefix), but fails when a custom hostname is set , for example in docker-compose.yml:

services:
  backup:
    hostname: "${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}-backup"

This results in the error:

ValueError: Cannot find metadata for backup container
Use Case

Setting a custom hostname like ${COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME}-backup is useful for:

  • Consistent identification across container restarts
  • Better monitoring and metrics (e.g., in Prometheus/Grafana)
  • More readable hostnames in logs and dashboards
Proposed Solution

Extend the container detection logic to support both the original ID-based method and hostname-based detection:

for container_data in all_containers:
    container_id = container_data.get("Id", "")
    container_hostname = container_data.get("Config", {}).get("Hostname", "")
    
    if container_id.startswith(socket.gethostname()) or container_hostname == socket.gethostname():
        self.this_container = Container(container_data)
        break
Benefits
  • Maintains backward compatibility with existing setups
  • Allows users to set custom hostnames for better monitoring
  • No breaking changes to current functionality

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in src/restic_compose_backup/containers.py around line 410, where the backup container is identified from Docker metadata. Reproduce the failure with the custom hostname shown in the issue, then verify that both the default ID-based setup and the hostname-based setup locate the backup container without the metadata error.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, docker-compose, python
Domain
infrastructure
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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