Configure Translator Docker containers

Article
04/08/2024

Azure AI services provide each container with a common configuration framework. You can easily configure your Translator containers to build Translator application architecture optimized for robust cloud capabilities and edge locality.

The Translator container runtime environment is configured using the docker run command arguments. This container has both required and optional settings. The required container-specific settings are the billing settings.

Configuration settings

The container has the following configuration settings:

Required	Setting	Purpose
Yes	ApiKey	Tracks billing information.
No	ApplicationInsights	Enables adding Azure Application Insights telemetric support to your container.
Yes	Billing	Specifies the endpoint URI of the service resource on Azure.
Yes	EULA	Indicates that you accepted the end-user license agreement (EULA) for the container.
No	Fluentd	Writes log and, optionally, metric data to a Fluentd server.
No	HTTP Proxy	Configures an HTTP proxy for making outbound requests.
No	Logging	Provides ASP.NET Core logging support for your container.
Yes	Mounts	Reads and writes data from the host computer to the container and from the container back to the host computer.

Important

The ApiKey, Billing, and EULA settings are used together, and you must provide valid values for all three of them; otherwise your container won't start. For more information about using these configuration settings to instantiate a container.

ApiKey configuration setting

The ApiKey setting specifies the Azure resource key used to track billing information for the container. You must specify a value for the ApiKey and the value must be a valid key for the Translator resource specified for the Billing configuration setting.

This setting can be found in the following place:

Azure portal: Translator resource management, under Keys

ApplicationInsights setting

The ApplicationInsights setting allows you to add Azure Application Insights telemetry support to your container. Application Insights provides in-depth monitoring of your container. You can easily monitor your container for availability, performance, and usage. You can also quickly identify and diagnose errors in your container.

The following table describes the configuration settings supported under the ApplicationInsights section.

Required	Name	Data type	Description
No	`InstrumentationKey`	String	The instrumentation key of the Application Insights instance to which telemetry data for the container is sent. For more information, see Application Insights for ASP.NET Core. Example: `InstrumentationKey=123456789`

Billing configuration setting

The Billing setting specifies the endpoint URI of the Translator resource on Azure used to meter billing information for the container. You must specify a value for this configuration setting, and the value must be a valid endpoint URI for a Translator resource on Azure. The container reports usage about every 10 to 15 minutes.

This setting can be found in the following place:

Azure portal: Translator Overview page labeled Endpoint

Required	Name	Data type	Description
Yes	`Billing`	String	Billing endpoint URI. For more information on obtaining the billing URI, see gathering required parameters. For more information and a complete list of regional endpoints, see Custom subdomain names for Azure AI services.

EULA setting

The Eula setting indicates that you've accepted the license for the container. You must specify a value for this configuration setting, and the value must be set to accept.

Required	Name	Data type	Description
Yes	`Eula`	String	License acceptance Example: `Eula=accept`

Azure AI services containers are licensed under your agreement governing your use of Azure. If you do not have an existing agreement governing your use of Azure, you agree that your agreement governing use of Azure is the Microsoft Online Subscription Agreement, which incorporates the Online Services Terms. For previews, you also agree to the Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews. By using the container you agree to these terms.

Fluentd settings

Fluentd is an open-source data collector for unified logging. The Fluentd settings manage the container's connection to a Fluentd server. The container includes a Fluentd logging provider, which allows your container to write logs and, optionally, metric data to a Fluentd server.

The following table describes the configuration settings supported under the Fluentd section.

Name	Data type	Description
`Host`	String	The IP address or DNS host name of the Fluentd server.
`Port`	Integer	The port of the Fluentd server. The default value is 24224.
`HeartbeatMs`	Integer	The heartbeat interval, in milliseconds. If no event traffic has been sent before this interval expires, a heartbeat is sent to the Fluentd server. The default value is 60000 milliseconds (1 minute).
`SendBufferSize`	Integer	The network buffer space, in bytes, allocated for send operations. The default value is 32768 bytes (32 kilobytes).
`TlsConnectionEstablishmentTimeoutMs`	Integer	The timeout, in milliseconds, to establish a SSL/TLS connection with the Fluentd server. The default value is 10000 milliseconds (10 seconds). If `UseTLS` is set to false, this value is ignored.
`UseTLS`	Boolean	Indicates whether the container should use SSL/TLS for communicating with the Fluentd server. The default value is false.

HTTP/HTTPS proxy credentials settings

If you need to configure an HTTP proxy for making outbound requests, use these two arguments:

Name	Data type	Description
HTTPS_PROXY	string	The proxy URL, for example, `https://proxy:8888`

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
--memory 2g --cpus 1 \
--mount type-bind,src=/home/azureuser/output,target=/output \
<registry-location>/<image-name> \
Eula=accept \
Billing=<endpoint> \
ApiKey=<api-key> \
HTTPS_PROXY=<proxy-url>

Logging settings

Translator containers support the following logging providers:

Provider	Purpose
Console	The ASP.NET Core `Console` logging provider. All of the ASP.NET Core configuration settings and default values for this logging provider are supported.
Debug	The ASP.NET Core `Debug` logging provider. All of the ASP.NET Core configuration settings and default values for this logging provider are supported.
Disk	The JSON logging provider. This logging provider writes log data to the output mount.

The Logging settings manage ASP.NET Core logging support for your container. You can use the same configuration settings and values for your container that you use for an ASP.NET Core application.
The Logging.LogLevel specifies the minimum level to log. The severity of the LogLevel ranges from 0 to 6. When a LogLevel is specified, logging is enabled for messages at the specified level and higher: Trace = 0, Debug = 1, Information = 2, Warning = 3, Error = 4, Critical = 5, None = 6.
Currently, Translator containers have the ability to restrict logs at the Warning LogLevel or higher.

The general command syntax for logging is as follows:

    -Logging:LogLevel:{Provider}={FilterSpecs}

The following command starts the Docker container with the LogLevel set to Warning and logging provider set to Console. This command prints anomalous or unexpected events during the application flow to the console:

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000
-v /mnt/d/TranslatorContainer:/usr/local/models \
-e apikey={API_KEY} \
-e eula=accept \
-e billing={ENDPOINT_URI} \
-e Languages=en,fr,es,ar,ru  \
-e Logging:LogLevel:Console="Warning"
mcr.microsoft.com/azure-cognitive-services/translator/text-translation:latest

Disk logging

The Disk logging provider supports the following configuration settings:

Name	Data type	Description
`Format`	String	The output format for log files. Note: This value must be set to `json` to enable the logging provider. If this value is specified without also specifying an output mount while instantiating a container, an error occurs.
`MaxFileSize`	Integer	The maximum size, in megabytes (MB), of a log file. When the size of the current log file meets or exceeds this value, the logging provider starts a new log file. If -1 is specified, the size of the log file is limited only by the maximum file size, if any, for the output mount. The default value is 1.

Disk provider example

docker run --rm -it -p 5000:5000 \
--memory 2g --cpus 1 \
--mount type-bind,src=/home/azureuser/output,target=/output \
-e apikey={API_KEY} \
-e eula=accept \
-e billing={ENDPOINT_URI} \
-e Languages=en,fr,es,ar,ru  \
Eula=accept \
Billing=<endpoint> \
ApiKey=<api-key> \
Logging:Disk:Format=json \
Mounts:Output=/output

For more information about configuring ASP.NET Core logging support, see Settings file configuration.

Mount settings

Use bind mounts to read and write data to and from the container. You can specify an input mount or output mount by specifying the --mount option in the docker run command.

Next steps

Learn more about Azure AI containers