Unofficial OpenFOAM Docker Images for CfdOF

Unofficial OpenFOAM Docker Images for CfdOF. This lets you to run newer versions of OpenFOAM with CfdOF via Docker. The Dockerfiles pull Foundation and OpenCFD/ESI versions of OpenFOAM from Docker Hub, install gmsh, cfmesh and hisa, and configure a bashrc script to work with CfdOF.

At the time of writing, CfdOF 1.37.3 supports OpenFOAM Foundation 9 to 13, and OpenCFD/ESI v2006 to v2512.

Using pre-built images

Images are built against dockerfile.foundation and dockerfile.opencfd and uploaded to GitHub Container Registry (GHCR). The edition tags track the latest image configured for that OpenFOAM edition.

• OpenFOAM Foundation - ghcr.io/kktse/cfdof-openfoam:foundation
• OpenCFD/ESI - ghcr.io/kktse/cfdof-openfoam:opencfd

To use the pre-built images with CfdOF pull the latest image from GHCR.

$ docker pull ghcr.io/kktse/cfdof-openfoam:foundation
# or
$ docker pull ghcr.io/kktse/cfdof-openfoam:opencfd

WARNING: It is not recommended to pull the Docker image directly from FreeCAD and CfdOF, as it may not download all the necessary image layers.

In FreeCAD, navigate to the CfdOF preferences page by navigating to Edit > Preferences > CfdOf. In the Software dependencies > Docker Container section, toggle Use docker to true, and specify the "Download from URL" path to the desired image name. For example, to use the OpenFOAM Foundation image, set the "Download from URL" field to ghcr.io/kktse/cfdof-openfoam:foundation. Proceed as usual to install the Docker container runtime per the CfdOF instructions.

Building locally

To build an image manually, use the Dockerfile for the OpenFOAM edition you want to build.

$ DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
    --build-arg="BASE_IMAGE=openfoam/openfoam11-paraview510:11" \
    -f dockerfile.foundation .
# or
$ DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build \
    --build-arg="BASE_IMAGE=opencfd/openfoam-dev:2512" \
    -f dockerfile.opencfd .

The OpenFOAM versions built by GitHub Actions are defined in the matrix.include entries in .github/workflows/docker-publish.yml. The current base images are:

Foundation builds compile cfmesh-cfdof from source. OpenCFD builds use the cartesianMesh provided by the OpenCFD base image and install a small cartesianMesh -version compatibility shim for CfdOF.

For Foundation images, set the CfdOF mesh object's number of meshing processes to 1. The parallel cfMesh path can fail during reconstruction with Non-empty processor patch "processor0to1" found in reconstructed mesh.

Maintainers can also use the manual GitHub Actions workflow trigger to build a one-off Foundation or OpenCFD image by supplying the desired version, base image and runtime user. Manual builds always publish the versioned tag and can optionally move the edition alias tag.

In FreeCAD, navigate to the CfdOF preferences page by navigating to Edit > Preferences > CfdOf. In the Software dependencies > Docker Container section, toggle Use docker to true, and specify the "Download from URL" path to the image ID of the built image. Click on "Install Docker Container" and ignore the error message, "Error response from daemon: pull access denied". Proceed as usual to install the Docker container runtime per the CfdOF instructions.

Reverting to the default CfdOF Docker image

The default image URL used by CfdOF is docker.io/mmcker/cfdof-openfoam.

In FreeCAD, navigate to the CfdOF preferences page by navigating to Edit > Preferences > CfdOf. In the Software dependencies > Docker Container section, toggle Use docker to true, and specify the "Download from URL" path as docker.io/mmcker/cfdof-openfoam.

Installation sources

Foundation and OpenCFD/ESI images are based on the BASE_IMAGE selected in .github/workflows/docker-publish.yml or supplied to the manual workflow. gmsh is installed from the selected base image's apt repositories.

For Foundation images, cfmesh is compiled from source from cfMesh-CfdOF. For OpenCFD/ESI images, the version of cartesianMesh packaged in the base image is used with a CfdOF-compatible -version shim.

hisa is compiled from source from HiSA.