Docker is hotter than hot because it makes it possible to get far more apps running on the same old servers and it also makes it very easy to package and ship programs.
Seven years ago, Solomon Hykes helped found a business, Docker, which sought to make containers easy to use. With the release of Docker 1.0 in June 2014, the buzz became a roar. And, over the years, it's only got louder. All the noise is happening because companies are adopting Docker at a remarkable rate and numerous businesses that had already moved their server applications from virtual machines (VM) to containers.
What is Docker?
In simple terms, Docker is a tool that lets developers create, deploy, and run applications in containers. Containerization is the use of Linux containers to deploy applications.
So why is Docker so great, and why should we as developers even bother learning it?
Flexible: Even the most complex applications can be containerized.
Lightweight: Containers leverage and share the host kernel.
Interchangeable: You can deploy updates and upgrades on-the-fly.
Portable: You can build locally, deploy to the cloud, and run anywhere.
Scalable: You can increase and automatically distribute container replicas.
Stackable: You can stack services vertically and on-the-fly.
Now that we know why Docker is such a big deal, let's have it installed on our local machine.
Sign up for an account on Docker Hub, and download the free Docker Desktop application.
How is Docker different from traditional Virtual Machines?
A container runs natively on Linux and shares the kernel of the host machine with other containers. It runs a discrete process, taking no more memory than any other executable, making it lightweight.
By contrast, a virtual machine (VM) runs a full-blown “guest” operating system with virtual access to host resources through a hypervisor. In general, VMs provide an environment with more resources than most applications need.
When working with Docker, a Dockerfile defines what goes on in the environment inside your container. Access to resources like networking interfaces and disk drives is virtualized inside this environment, which is isolated from the rest of your system, so you need to map ports to the outside world, and be specific about what files you want to “copy in” to that environment. However, after doing that, you can expect that the build of your app defined in this Dockerfile behaves the same wherever it runs.
Docker Commands
To test that you have a running version of Docker, run the following command:
docker --version
To test that your installation is working perfectly, try running the simple Docker hello-world image:
docker run hello-world
If all is setup properly, you should see output similar to the following:
Unable to find image 'hello-world:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from library/hello-world
ca4f61b1923c: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:ca0eeb6fb05351dfc8759c20733c91def84cb8007aa89a5bf606bc8b315b9fc7
Status: Downloaded newer image for hello-world:latest
Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.
...
To see the hello-world Docker image that was downloaded to your computer. The Docker image listing command is helpful. Here it is:
docker image ls
Awesome! You've already started developing containerized applications with Docker. Here are some helpful basic Docker commands:
# List Docker CLI commands
docker
docker container --help
# Display Docker version and info
docker --version
docker version
docker info
# Execute Docker image
docker run hello-world
# List Docker images
docker image ls
# List Docker containers (running, all, all in quiet mode)
docker container ls
docker container ls --all
docker container ls -aq
Containerization makes CI/CD seamless. For example:
- applications have no system dependencies
updates can be pushed to any part of a distributed application
resource density can be optimized.
With Docker, scaling your application is a matter of spinning up new executables, not running heavy VM hosts.
Let's build a Node.js web app using Docker!
The first thing we do is create a package.json file. We can do this quickly, by simply running the following command:
npm init -y
This creates the file, above with certain essential fields already filled in, or left blank.
Your file should look something like this:
{
"name": "app-name",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"keywords": [],
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
Next, we install express.js - which according to the official website, is a "Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js".
We do this by running the following command in a terminal:
npm install express --save
The command above adds the express.js framework to our application, with the --save flag, acting as an instruction to the application, to use express.js as a dependency.
Now, go into your package.json, and change the "main": "index.js" key-value pair to the following:
"main": "app.js"
Next, create a .gitignore file using the following command:
touch .gitignore
Then add the following line:
node_modules/
This prevents the node_modules folder which is essential to node.js development from being tracked by git.
Now add the following code to the app.js file:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const PORT = 8080;
const HOST = '0.0.0.0';
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.send(
`
<h1>Home</h1>
<p>Docker is awesome!</p>
<a href="/more" alt="Next Page">Next Page</a>
`
)
});
app.get('/more', (req, res) => {
res.send(
`
<h1>Page Two</h1>
<p>Node.js is pretty great too!!</p>
<a href="/" alt="Back Home">Back Home</a>
`
)
});
app.listen(PORT, HOST);
console.log(`Running on https://${HOST}:${PORT}`);
To have this run on your local machine, run the following command, in the application folder:
npm start
You will find the application running at
0.0.0.0:8080
Awesome!
Congratulations! Congratulations on making it this far
Into the Dockerverse
Now create a Dockerfile with the following command:
touch Dockerfile
Then place in the following code:
# An official Docker image for Node.js
FROM node:10-alpine
# Working directory for the containerized application
WORKDIR /src/app
# This copies significant package.json files to the current directory
COPY package*.json ./
# Install essential Node.js dependencies
RUN npm install
COPY . .
# Opens up this port on the Docker container
EXPOSE 8080
# This starts the Docker application
CMD [ "npm", "start" ]
The comments above, attempt to explain what each Dockerfile command does.
Also, add a dockerignore file, to prevent the containerization of certain components of the application.
Place this inside of the file created:
node_modules
npm-debug.log
Dockerfile*
docker-compose*
.dockerignore
.git
.gitignore
README.md
LICENSE
How to Deploy!
The <image-name> is the name you assign to your Docker app, and <tag> is essentially just a version indicator for your Docker image.
docker build -t image-name:tag .
Run this to access your Docker account from your terminal.
docker login
Create a repository on Docker Hub.
Tag<image>for upload to registry.
docker tag <image-name> username/repository:tag
Upload tagged images to the registry.
docker push username/repository:tag
Run the deployed Docker container on your local machine, by connecting PORTS - targeting the exposed 8080, and assigning it to 10203 on your machine.
docker run -p 10203:8080 username/repository:tag
That's it! You have built and deployed a containerized Node.js web application. All the code above can be found in this Github repository .