Run bcbio-nextgen genomic sequencing analysis pipelines using code and tools isolated inside of lightweight containers. This enables:

• Improved installation: Pre-installing all required biological code, tools and system libraries inside a container removes the difficulties associated with supporting multiple platforms. Installation only requires setting up docker and download of the latest container.
• Pipeline isolation: Third party software used in processing is fully isolated and will not impact existing tools or software. This eliminates the need for modules or PATH manipulation to provide partial isolation.
• Full reproducibility: You can maintain snapshots of the code and processing environment indefinitely, providing the ability to re-run an older analysis by reverting to an archived snapshot.

This currently supports lightweight docker containers. It is still a work in progress and we welcome feedback and problem reports.

• Install docker on your system. You will need root permissions.

• Setup a docker group to provide the ability to run Docker without being root. You'll likely want to add the trusted user who will be managing and testing docker images to this group:

  sudo groupadd docker
  sudo gpasswd -a ${USERNAME} docker
  sudo service docker restart
  newgrp docker

• Install bcbio-nextgen-vm using conda with an isolated Python:

  wget http://repo.continuum.io/miniconda/Miniconda-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
  bash Miniconda-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh -b -p ~/install/bcbio-vm/anaconda
  ~/install/bcbio-vm/anaconda/bin/conda install --yes -c https://conda.binstar.org/bcbio bcbio-nextgen-vm
  ln -s ~/install/bcbio-vm/anaconda/bin/bcbio_vm.py /usr/local/bin/bcbio_vm.py

  or with your system Python:

  pip install conda
  conda install -c https://conda.binstar.org/bcbio bcbio-nextgen-vm

• Ensure the driver script is setgid to the docker group. This allows users to run bcbio-nextgen without needing to be in the docker group or have root access. To avoid security issues, bcbio_vm.py sanitizes input arguments and runs the internal docker process as the calling user using a small wrapper script so it will only have permissions available to that user:

  sudo chown :docker /usr/local/bin/bcbio_vm.py
  sudo chmod g+s /usr/local/bin/bcbio_vm.py

• Install bcbio-nextgen. This will get the latest bcbio-nextgen docker index with software and tools, as well as downloading genome data:

  bcbio_vm.py --datadir=~/install/bcbio-vm/data install --data --tools

  By default, this will download and import the default docker image as chapmanb/bcbio-nextgen-devel. You can specify an alternative image location with --image your_image_name, and skip the --tools argument if this image is already present and configured.

  If you have an existing bcbio-nextgen installation and want to avoid re-installing existing genome data, first symlink to the current installation data:

  mkdir ~/install/bcbio-vm/data
  cd ~/install/bcbio-vm/data
  ln -s /usr/local/share/bcbio_nextgen/genomes
  ln -s /usr/local/share/gemini/data gemini_data

• If you didn't use the recommended installation organization (a shared directory with code under anaconda and data under data) set the data location configuration once for each individual user of bcbio-nextgen to avoid needing to specify the location of data directories on subsequent runs:

  bcbio_vm.py --datadir=~/install/bcbio-vm/data saveconfig

Usage of bcbio_vm.py is similar to bcbio_nextgen.py, with some cleanups to make the command line more consistent. To run an analysis on a prepared bcbio-nextgen sample configuration file:

bcbio_vm.py run -n 4 sample_config.yaml

To run distributed on a cluster using IPython parallel:

bcbio_vm.py ipython sample_config.yaml torque your_queue -n 64

bcbio-nextgen also contains tests that exercise docker functionality:

cd bcbio-nextgen/tests
./run_tests.sh docker
./run_tests.sh docker_ipython

bcbio-nextgen-vm enables easy updates of the wrapper code, tools and data. To update the wrapper code:

bcbio_vm.py install --wrapper

To update tools, with a download of the latest docker image:

bcbio_vm.py install --tools

To update the associated data files:

bcbio_vm.py install --data

Combine all commands to update everything concurrently.

These notes are for building containers from scratch or developing on bcbio-nextgen.

• Enable specification of external programs/jars to handle tricky non-distributable issues like GATK protected versions. Map these directories into docker container.
• Improve ability to develop and test on locally installed images.

An ansible playbook automates the process of creating the bcbio-nextgen docker images. To build on AWS and upload the latest image to S3:

cd ansible
vim defaults.yml
ansible-playbook bcbio_vm_aws.yml --extra-vars "@defaults.yml"

or locally, with Docker pre-installed:

ansible-playbook -c local bcbio_vm_local.yml --extra-vars "@defaults.yml"

Install the current bcbio docker image into your local repository by hand with:

docker import https://s3.amazonaws.com/bcbio_nextgen/bcbio-nextgen-docker-image.gz chapmanb/bcbio-nextgen-devel

The installer does this automatically, but this is useful if you want to work with the bcbio-nextgen docker image independently from the wrapper.

Update local images during development:

DID=$(docker run -d -i -t -v ~/bio/bcbio-nextgen:/tmp/bcbio-nextgen
      chapmanb/bcbio-nextgen-devel /bin/bash)
docker attach $DID
cd /tmp/bcbio-nextgen
/usr/local/share/bcbio-nextgen/anaconda/bin/python setup.py install
docker commit $DID chapmanb/bcbio-nextgen-devel