The your python application up and running is as simple as packaging up the application into a Docker container. Once you have the Docker container uploaded to a container registry, you can easily deploy that container on 1-100s of fully customizable (# CPUs, # RAM, GPU) instances.

In this guide, we will create a simple Hello World python application, but these steps can be used to deploy any new or existing application on Salad.

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Creating the Python Container

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Requirements

You would normally have the package requirements for your application in some file.

It would depend mainly on the tool you use to install those requirements.

The most common way to do it is to have a file requirements.txt with the package names and their versions, one per line.

You would of course use the same ideas you read in About FastAPI versions to set the ranges of versions.

For example, your requirements.txt could look like:

fastapi>=0.68.0,<0.69.0
pydantic>=1.8.0,<2.0.0
uvicorn>=0.15.0,<0.16.0

And you would normally install those package dependencies with pip, for example:

pip install -r requirements.txt

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Create the FastAPI Code

• Create a main.py file with:

from typing import Union

from fastapi import FastAPI

app = FastAPI()


@app.get("/")
def read_root():
    return {"Hello": "World"}


@app.get("/items/{item_id}")
def read_item(item_id: int, q: Union[str, None] = None):
    return {"item_id": item_id, "q": q}

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Create the Dockerfile

Now in the same project directory create a file Dockerfile with:

# Starts with the official python base image
FROM python:3.9

# Set the current working directory to /code.
# This is where we'll put the requirements.txt file and the app directory.
WORKDIR /app

# Copy the file with the requirements to the /app directory.
# Copy any python files into the /app directory
COPY ./requirements.txt *.py ./

# Install the package dependencies in the requirements file.
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir --upgrade -r /app/requirements.txt

# Set the command to run the uvicorn server.
# CMD takes a list of strings, each of these strings is what you would type in the command line separated by spaces.
CMD ["uvicorn", "main:app", "--host", "::", "--port", "80"]

You should now have a directory structure like:

.
├── main.py
├── Dockerfile
└── requirements.txt

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Build the Docker Image

Now that all the files are in place, let’s build the container image.

• Go to the project directory (in where your Dockerfile is, containing your app directory).
• Build your FastAPI image:

docker build -t my-image:latest .

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Test the Container Locally

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Run the Docker Container

Run a container based on your image on your local machine:

docker run -d --name my-container -p 80:80 my-image:latest

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Check the API

You should be able to check it in your Docker container’s URL, for example:

• http://localhost:80/
• http://localhost/items/2

You will see something like:

{ "item_id": 5, "q": "some-query" }

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Push Container to a Registry

Now that you have a container locally, you will need to push that container image up to a container registry so it can be deployed on SaladCloud. You can push to any of the supported container registries, but for this guide we will use Docker Hub.

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Tagging the Image

In order to push the container image to Docker Hub you will first need to tag your image with your Docker username and an unique container name. The format of the image name is {docker-hub-username}/{image-name}:{version}

At SaladCloud we use the saladtechnologies username, but you will need to use your own username.

docker tag my-image saladtechnologies/run-python:0.1

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Pushing the Image

Now that your container has the proper naming convention, you can push the container to Docker Hub by running the push command.

docker push saladtechnologies/run-python:0.1

Once the image is pushed to Docker Hub you can now deploy your container on Salad!

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Deploy Container to Salad

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Creating the Container Group

Now that you have a complete (yet basic) FastAPI application running you can deploy it to SaladCloud via the Portal or the Public API.

When you are asked to specify the “Image Source” you simply need to provide the image name you used to push the container up to the registry.

Since the FastAPI is listening to port 80, you will need to enable the Container Gateway and configure the port when creating a new container group.

Deployment Guide

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Connecting to the Application

Once the container group is up and running, you will be given a static URL that load balances all http requests across the instances of your applications. If you enabled authentication then you will need to include your API key in the 'Salad-Api-Key header of your http requests.

Example Request

GET https://caesar-lime-465054.salad.cloud/items/2

Congrats! You have successfully created, containerized, deployed and connected to your first application on Salad!