crosstech-impl-docker-aec-stack

crosstech-impl-docker-aec-stack

Quick Reference

AEC Service	Base Image	Exposed Port	Memory Limit	Disk
IfcOpenShell worker	continuumio/miniconda3:24.7.1-0	8000 (internal)	4GB	1GB
web-ifc worker	node:20-slim	3000 (internal)	2GB	500MB
QGIS Server	qgis/qgis-server:ltr	80	1GB	5GB
Speckle Server	speckle/speckle-server	3000	4GB total (6 services)	20GB
n8n	n8nio/n8n:latest	5678	1GB	1GB
PostgreSQL	postgres:16-alpine	5432	1GB	10GB
Redis	redis:7-alpine	6379	256MB	--
MinIO	minio/minio:latest	9000/9001	512MB	50GB+

Full stack minimum (without ERPNext): 7 cores, 10GB RAM, 68GB disk.

Critical Warnings

ALWAYS use docker compose (v2 plugin syntax), NEVER docker-compose (legacy standalone binary).

ALWAYS install IfcOpenShell via conda (not pip) when geometry processing is required -- pip installs lack OCCT bindings.

NEVER use default secrets in production -- ALWAYS generate unique values for SESSION_SECRET, database passwords, and MinIO credentials.

NEVER expose infrastructure ports (PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO) to the host in production -- only AEC service ports need external access.

ALWAYS set memory limits on IfcOpenShell workers -- without limits, a large IFC file (>500MB) will consume all host memory.

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Technology Boundary

Side A: Docker (Containers, Compose)

Aspect	Detail
Technology	Docker Engine 24+, Docker Compose v2
Data format	Dockerfiles, docker-compose.yml (YAML)
API surface	docker compose up/down/build, Dockerfile instructions
Networking	Docker bridge networks, DNS-based service discovery
Storage	Named volumes, bind mounts, tmpfs

Side B: AEC Services (IfcOpenShell, Speckle, QGIS, web-ifc)

Aspect	Detail
IfcOpenShell	Python 3.10+, requires OCCT via conda-forge, IFC4/IFC4X3
Speckle Server	6 application services + 3 infrastructure services
QGIS Server	OGC-compliant WMS/WFS/WCS, QGIS 3.34 LTR
web-ifc	Node.js 20+, WebAssembly-based IFC parser, v0.0.57
n8n	Workflow automation, webhook + HTTP nodes

The Bridge: Dockerfiles + docker-compose Orchestration

Docker solves three AEC deployment problems:

1. Dependency hell -- IfcOpenShell requires OCCT, which requires specific C++ libraries. Conda inside a container isolates this completely.
2. Service coordination -- Speckle Server alone requires 9 coordinated services. Docker Compose defines them declaratively.
3. File sharing -- IFC files (50MB-2GB) must be accessible to multiple processing services. Named volumes provide a shared filesystem.

Data flow: IFC files enter via n8n webhooks or direct upload to MinIO. Processing services (IfcOpenShell, web-ifc) read from the shared ifc_data volume. Results flow to PostgreSQL (structured data) or back through the n8n pipeline to ERPNext/Speckle APIs.

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Critical Rules

1. ALWAYS use conda-forge for IfcOpenShell in Docker -- conda install -c conda-forge ifcopenshell pythonocc-core. The pythonocc-core package provides OCCT geometry bindings.
2. ALWAYS clean conda cache after install: conda clean -afy. This reduces image size by 200-400MB.
3. ALWAYS set deploy.resources.limits.memory on IfcOpenShell and web-ifc workers. IFC geometry processing has unbounded memory growth on large models.
4. ALWAYS use platform: linux/amd64 for Speckle Server images -- they are NOT available for ARM64.
5. ALWAYS use restart: always for production AEC services.
6. NEVER mount IFC data directories with :rw on services that only read -- use :ro (read-only) to prevent accidental file corruption.
7. ALWAYS use sub-directories per project in the IFC volume: /data/ifc/{project_id}/{filename}.ifc.
8. NEVER run ERPNext in the same compose stack as the AEC processing services -- it requires its own MariaDB, Redis, and bench-worker infrastructure. Connect via REST API from n8n.

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Decision Tree

Need to containerize an AEC tool?
├── Is it IfcOpenShell (Python)?
│   ├── Needs geometry processing? → conda-based Dockerfile (miniconda3 + pythonocc-core)
│   └── Property extraction only? → pip-based Dockerfile (python:3.11-slim + ifcopenshell)
├── Is it web-ifc (JavaScript)?
│   └── Use node:20-slim + npm install web-ifc
├── Is it QGIS Server?
│   └── Use qgis/qgis-server:ltr (or kartoza/qgis-server for extra config)
├── Is it Speckle Server?
│   └── Use official speckle docker-compose (9 services total)
└── Is it a multi-service AEC stack?
    └── Compose all services with shared ifc_data volume and aec-net network

Volume strategy for IFC files?
├── Single-node deployment → Named volume (ifc_data)
├── Multi-node deployment → MinIO/S3 object storage
└── Temporary processing artifacts → tmpfs mount

Which ports to expose externally?
├── n8n: 5678 (workflow UI + webhooks) → ALWAYS expose
├── QGIS Server: 8010→80 (WMS/WFS) → Expose if GIS clients need access
├── web-ifc: 3001→3000 → Expose ONLY if used as standalone API
└── Infrastructure (postgres, redis, minio) → NEVER expose in production

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Essential Patterns

Pattern 1: IfcOpenShell Dockerfile (Conda-Based with OCCT)

FROM continuumio/miniconda3:24.7.1-0

# ALWAYS install both ifcopenshell AND pythonocc-core for geometry support
RUN conda install -c conda-forge ifcopenshell pythonocc-core -y && \
    conda clean -afy

# Application dependencies
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir \
    fastapi==0.115.0 \
    uvicorn==0.30.0 \
    redis==5.0.0 \
    rq==1.16.0

WORKDIR /app
COPY ./scripts /app/scripts

EXPOSE 8000
CMD ["uvicorn", "main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000"]

Image size: ~1GB (400MB miniconda3 + 600MB IfcOpenShell/OCCT).

Pattern 2: web-ifc Worker Dockerfile

FROM node:20-slim

WORKDIR /app

RUN npm init -y && \
    npm install web-ifc@0.0.57

COPY ./src /app/src

EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "src/server.js"]

Image size: ~200MB (node:20-slim + WASM binaries).

Pattern 3: QGIS Server Service

qgis-server:
  image: qgis/qgis-server:ltr
  ports:
    - "8010:80"
  volumes:
    - ./qgis-projects:/project:ro
    - ./gis-data:/data:ro
  environment:
    QGIS_PROJECT_FILE: /project/project.qgs

Pattern 4: Shared IFC Volume

volumes:
  ifc_data:    # Named volume shared across AEC services

services:
  ifcopenshell-worker:
    volumes:
      - ifc_data:/data/ifc       # Read-write for processing output
  web-ifc-worker:
    volumes:
      - ifc_data:/data/ifc:ro    # Read-only -- web-ifc only reads
  n8n:
    volumes:
      - ifc_data:/data/ifc       # Read-write for file ingestion

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Common Operations

Start the Full AEC Stack

# Start infrastructure first, then AEC services
docker compose up -d postgres redis minio
docker compose up -d ifcopenshell-worker web-ifc-worker qgis-server n8n

Verify Service Health

# Check all services are running
docker compose ps

# Test IfcOpenShell worker
curl http://localhost:8000/health

# Test QGIS Server (WMS GetCapabilities)
curl "http://localhost:8010/ogc/project?SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetCapabilities"

# Test n8n
curl http://localhost:5678/healthz

Scale IfcOpenShell Workers for Large Models

# Run 3 parallel workers for batch IFC processing
docker compose up -d --scale ifcopenshell-worker=3

Process an IFC File Through the Stack

# Copy IFC file into the shared volume
docker compose cp ./model.ifc ifcopenshell-worker:/data/ifc/project-001/model.ifc

# Trigger processing via n8n webhook (example)
curl -X POST http://localhost:5678/webhook/ifc-process \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"project_id": "project-001", "filename": "model.ifc"}'

Speckle Server Deployment (Separate Stack)

# Clone Speckle Server repository
git clone https://github.com/specklesystems/speckle-server.git
cd speckle-server

# Start infrastructure
docker compose -f docker-compose-deps.yml up -d

# Configure environment variables (ALWAYS change defaults)
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env: set CANONICAL_URL, SESSION_SECRET, S3 keys

# Start application services
docker compose -f docker-compose-speckle.yml up -d

Network Architecture

                    +---------------------------------------------+
                    |              Docker Network (aec-net)        |
                    |                                              |
  External          |  +----------+    +--------------------+      |
  API calls  ------>|  |   n8n    |--->| ifcopenshell-worker|      |
  (port 5678)       |  |  :5678   |    | :8000 (internal)   |      |
                    |  +----+-----+    +--------------------+      |
                    |       |                                       |
                    |       +--------->+------------------+        |
                    |       |          |  web-ifc-worker  |        |
                    |       |          |  :3000 (internal)|        |
                    |       |          +------------------+        |
                    |       |                                       |
  WMS/WFS   ------>|  +----v-----+    +------------------+        |
  (port 8010)       |  |  qgis   |    |    ERPNext       |        |
                    |  |  server  |    |  (external/API)  |        |
                    |  +----------+    +------------------+        |
                    |                                              |
                    |  +----------+ +-------+ +-------+            |
                    |  | postgres | | redis | | minio |            |
                    |  +----------+ +-------+ +-------+            |
                    +---------------------------------------------+

Services communicate via Docker DNS names (e.g., http://ifcopenshell-worker:8000). No ports need exposure for inter-service traffic.

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Resource Planning

Component	CPU	RAM	Disk	Scaling Notes
PostgreSQL	1 core	1GB	10GB	Shared by Speckle + pipeline data
Redis	0.5 core	256MB	--	Job queues, caching
MinIO	0.5 core	512MB	50GB+	IFC file storage, scales with project count
IfcOpenShell worker	2 cores	4GB	1GB	Memory scales linearly with IFC file size
web-ifc worker	1 core	2GB	500MB	WASM-based, faster geometry than IfcOpenShell
QGIS Server	1 core	1GB	5GB	Memory per concurrent WMS request
n8n	1 core	1GB	1GB	Workflow orchestration hub
Total (dev)	~7 cores	~10GB	~68GB	Minimum for development

For IFC files >500MB: double IfcOpenShell worker memory. For concurrent users: scale workers with --scale.

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Reference Links

• references/methods.md -- Dockerfile patterns, docker-compose service definitions, volume strategies
• references/examples.md -- Complete docker-compose.yml for full AEC development stack
• references/anti-patterns.md -- Docker AEC deployment mistakes and how to avoid them

Official Sources

• Docker Compose specification: https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/
• Speckle Server Docker: https://github.com/specklesystems/speckle-server
• QGIS Server Docker: https://github.com/qgis/qgis-docker
• web-ifc npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/web-ifc
• IfcOpenShell conda-forge: https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/ifcopenshell
• n8n Docker deployment: https://docs.n8n.io/hosting/installation/server-setups/docker-compose/
• Docker Hub -- IfcOpenShell images: https://hub.docker.com/r/aecgeeks/ifcopenshell