docker-py currently unmaintained, consider a replacement

[rpwagner]

I found this while looking into how DockerSpawner calls docker as inspiration for a similar spawner for Apptainer. It's a significant enough potential issue that I wanted to raise it.

Proposed change

There is a current PR in the docker-py repo to list the package as unmaintained.

Alternative options

One of the commenters on the PR has an alternative package that calls the Docker CLI. This may be replacement for docker-py.

• Blog post
• Repo
• Documentation

Who would use this feature?

This would impact all DockerSpawner users.

(Optional): Suggest a solution

• Review the development activity around docker-py. There are some recent contributions, but the number of issues and PRs are significant.
• Decide on whether on not to find alternative to docker-py. Python-on-Whales may be better than maintaining a separate wrapper to the Docker CLI or API. It may or may not be a drop-in replacement.
• Determine the amount of code and documentation changes, along with any new dependency issues.
• Plan on a target release, code, test, etc.

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[manics]

Switching to the docker CLI would also mean the podman CLI should mostly just work 😃

https://gabrieldemarmiesse.github.io/python-on-whales/#main-features claims

1 to 1 mapping between the CLI interface and the Python API.

There's a couple of Podman CLI spawners intended to get the benefits of daemon-less root-less containers.

• https://github.com/gatoniel/podmanspawner
• https://github.com/manics/podmanclispawner
  I've also written a Podman CLI backend for repo2docker:
• https://github.com/manics/repo2podman

So I don't think switching to a CLI wrapper (either our own or python-on-whales) is too difficult. It's a question of is it worth it and if so, how soon is it needed? It's obviously best not to use an unmaintained package, but there's only one CVE for docker-py from 2014.

[rpwagner]

I don't feel moving away from docker-py is urgent, unless something changes, like:

• A critical CVE in docker-py that can't be mitigated by a change to DockerSpawner
• Incompatibility with a newer version of Docker, Python, or a docker-py dependency

However, it does seem like an issue to have on the radar so that it's not a surprise if docker-py can't be used, or if there's an opportunity to make a change with other benefits. And I am too unfamiliar with Docker to say whether a CLI wrapper library would be the better solution, I was just glad to have something to list under alternative options.