Docker is a virtualization application that abstracts applications into isolated environments known as containers. The idea behind a container is to provide a unified platform that includes the software tools and dependencies for developing and deploying an application.

The traditional way of developing applications is where an application is designed and hosted on a single server. This setup results in a number of problems including the famous "it works on my machine but not on yours". Also in this architecture, apps are difficult to scale and to migrate resulting in huge costs and slow deployment.

Single Server.
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Virtual Machines vs. Containers

Virtual machines (VMs) emulates the capabilities of a physical machine making it possible to install and run operating systems by using a hypervisor. The hypervisor is a piece of software on the physical machine (the host) that makes it possible to carry out virtualization where multiple guest machines are managed by the host machine.

Virtual Machines.
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Containers on the other hand isolate the environment for hosting an application with its own libraries and software dependencies, however, as opposed to a VM, containers on a machine all share the same operating system kernel. Docker is an example of a container.

Containers.
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Working with Docker

Begin by installing Docker software on the local machine to enable it run Docker containers. Visit https://www.docker.com/get-started to get started.

Key concepts to note are:

  • Dockerfile: A Dockerfile is a text file that specifies how an image will be created.
  • Docker Images: Images are created by building a Dockerfile.
  • Docker Containers: Docker containers is the runnning instance of an image.

The diagram below highlights the process to build an image and run a Docker container.

Docker containerization process.
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Introducing DockerHub

DockerHub is a library for hosting Docker images.

Dockerhub.
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Key Routines when Writing a Dockerfile

The following are key routines when creating a Dockerfile.

Command Description
FROM The base Docker image for the Dockerfile.
LABEL Key-value pair for specifying image metadata.
RUN It execute commands on top of the current image as new layers.
COPY Copies files from the local machine to the container filesystem.
EXPOSE Exposes runtime ports for the Docker container.
CMD Specifies the command to execute when running the container. This command is overridden if another command is specified at runtime.
ENTRYPOINT Specifies the command to execute when running the container. Entrypoint commands are not overridden by a command specified at runtime.
WORKDIR Set working directory of the container.
VOLUME Mount a volume from the local machine filesystem to the Docker container.
ARG Set Environment variable as a key-value pair when building the image.
ENV Set Environment variable as a key-value pair that will be available in the container after building.

Build and Run a Simple Docker Container

In this simple example, we have a bash script titled date-script.sh. The script assigns the current date to a variable and then prints out the date to the console. The Dockerfile will copy the script from the local machine to the docker container filesystem and execute the shell script when running the container. The Dockerfile to build the container is stored in docker-intro/hello-world.

bash
# navigate to folder with images
cd docker-intro/hello-world

Let's view the bash script.

bash
cat date-script.sh

bash
#! /bin/sh
DATE="$(date)"
echo "Todays date is $DATE"

Let's view the Dockerfile.

bash
# view the Dockerfile
cat Dockerfile

bash
# base image for building container
FROM docker.io/alpine
# add maintainer label
LABEL maintainer="dvdbisong@gmail.com"
# copy script from local machine to container filesystem
COPY date-script.sh /date-script.sh
# execute script
CMD sh date-script.sh
  • The Docker image will be built-off the Alpine linux package. See https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine
  • The CMD routine executes the script when the container runs.

Build the Image

bash
# build the image
docker build -t ekababisong.org/first_image .

Build output:

text
Sending build context to Docker daemon  2.048kB
Step 1/4 : FROM docker.io/alpine
latest: Pulling from library/alpine
6c40cc604d8e: Pull complete 
Digest: sha256:b3dbf31b77fd99d9c08f780ce6f5282aba076d70a513a8be859d8d3a4d0c92b8
Status: Downloaded newer image for alpine:latest
 ---> caf27325b298
Step 2/4 : LABEL maintainer="dvdbisong@gmail.com"
 ---> Running in 306600656ab4
Removing intermediate container 306600656ab4
 ---> 33beb1ebcb3c
Step 3/4 : COPY date-script.sh /date-script.sh
 ---> Running in 688dc55c502a
Removing intermediate container 688dc55c502a
 ---> dfd6517a0635
Step 4/4 : CMD sh date-script.sh
 ---> Running in eb80136161fe
Removing intermediate container eb80136161fe
 ---> e97c75dcc5ba
Successfully built e97c75dcc5ba
Successfully tagged ekababisong.org/first_image:latest

Run the Container

bash
# show the images on the image
docker images

text
REPOSITORY                    TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ekababisong.org/first_image   latest              e97c75dcc5ba        32 minutes ago      5.52MB
alpine                        latest              caf27325b298        3 weeks ago         5.52MB

bash
# run the docker container from the image
docker run ekababisong.org/first_image

text
Todays date is Sun Feb 24 04:45:08 UTC 2019

Important Docker Commands

Commands for Managing Images

Command Description
docker images List all images on the machine.
docker rmi [IMAGE_NAME] Remove the image with name IMAGE_NAME on the machine.
docker rmi $(docker images -q) Remove all images from the machine.

Commands for Managing Containers

Command Description
docker ps List all containers. Append -a to also list containers not running.
docker stop [CONTAINER_ID] Gracefully stop the container with [CONTAINER_ID] on the machine.
docker kill CONTAINER_ID] Forcefully stop the container with [CONTAINER_ID] on the machine.
docker rm [CONTAINER_ID] Remove the container with [CONTAINER_ID] from the machine.
docker rm $(docker ps -a -q) Remove all containers from the machine.

Running a Docker Container

Let's breakdown the following command for running a Docker container.

bash
docker run -d -it --rm --name [CONTAINER_NAME] -p 8081:80 [IMAGE_NAME]

where,

  • -d: run the container in detached mode. This mode runs the container in the background.
  • -it: run in interactive mode, with a terminal session attached.
  • --rm: remove the container when it exits.
  • --name: specify a name for the container.
  • -p: port forwarding from host to the container (i.e. host:container).

Serve a Webpage on an nginx Web Server with Docker

The Dockerfile

bash
# base image for building container
FROM docker.io/nginx
# add maintainer label
LABEL maintainer="dvdbisong@gmail.com"
# copy html file from local machine to container filesystem
COPY html/index.html /usr/share/nginx/html
# port to expose to the container
EXPOSE 80

Build the image

bash
# navigate to directory
cd docker-intro/nginx-server/

# build the image
docker build -t ekababisong.org/nginx_server .

text
Sending build context to Docker daemon  2.048kB
Step 1/4 : FROM docker.io/nginx
latest: Pulling from library/nginx
6ae821421a7d: Pull complete
da4474e5966c: Pull complete
eb2aec2b9c9f: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:dd2d0ac3fff2f007d99e033b64854be0941e19a2ad51f174d9240dda20d9f534
Status: Downloaded newer image for nginx:latest
 ---> f09fe80eb0e7
Step 2/4 : LABEL maintainer="dvdbisong@gmail.com"
 ---> Running in 084c2484893a
Removing intermediate container 084c2484893a
 ---> 2ced9e52fb67
Step 3/4 : COPY html/index.html /usr/share/nginx/html
 ---> 1d9684901bd3
Step 4/4 : EXPOSE 80
 ---> Running in 3f5738a94220
Removing intermediate container 3f5738a94220
 ---> 7f8e2fe2db73
Successfully built 7f8e2fe2db73
Successfully tagged ekababisong.org/nginx_server:latest

bash
# list images on machine
docker images

text
REPOSITORY                       TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ekababisong.org/nginx_server     latest              0928acf9fcbf        18 hours ago        109MB
ekababisong.org/first_image      latest              773973d28958        20 hours ago        5.53MB

Run the container

bash
# run the container
docker run -d -it --name ebisong-nginx -p 8081:80 ekababisong.org/nginx_server

# list containers
docker ps

text
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
b3380cc02551        ekababisong.org/nginx_server   "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   7 seconds ago       Up 4 seconds        0.0.0.0:8081->80/tcp   ebisong-nginx

View Webpage on the Running Server

Open a web browser and go to: 0.0.0.0:8081

Webpage on nginx webserver.
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Cleanup

bash
# shutdown the container
docker stop b3380cc02551

# remove the container
docker rm ebisong-nginx

Push Image to Dockerhub

Login to Docker and provide your userid and password.

bash
# login to docker
docker login

bash
# tag the image
docker tag 096e538abc1e ekababisong/ebisong-nginx-server:latest

# push to Dockerhub
docker push ekababisong/ebisong-nginx-server

text
The push refers to repository [docker.io/ekababisong/ebisong-nginx-server]
db4c3e547e3f: Pushed
6b5e2ed60418: Mounted from library/nginx
92c15149e23b: Mounted from library/nginx
0a07e81f5da3: Mounted from library/nginx
latest: digest: sha256:733009c33c6cf2775fedea36a3e1032006f1fe3d5155f49d4ddc742ea1dce1f1 size: 1155

Volumes

Local directories can be mounted as a volume to a running container, instead of the container filesystem itself. With volumes,the data can be shared with the container, while persisted on the local machine. Volumes are attached with the -v label in the docker run command.

Mount a Volume to the Containerized nginx Web Server

bash
docker run -d -it --name ebisong-nginx -p 8081:80 -v /Users/ekababisong/Documents/Talks/kubeflow-for-poets/docker-intro/nginx-server/html:/usr/share/nginx/html  ekababisong.org/nginx_server

Now whatever changes is made to the file index.html is immediately seen on the web browser from the nginx server in the Docker container.

Run a Tensorflow Jupyter Image from Dockerhub

Pull the Image from Dockerhub

Note: This image is large and will take a while to pull from Dockerhub.

bash
# pull the image from dockerhub
docker pull jupyter/tensorflow-notebook

text
Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from jupyter/tensorflow-notebook
a48c500ed24e: Pull complete
...
edbe68d32a46: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:75f1ffa1582a67eace0f96aec95ded82ce6bf491e915af80ddc039befea926aa
Status: Downloaded newer image for jupyter/tensorflow-notebook:latest

Run the Container

This command starts an ephemeral container running a Jupyter Notebook server and exposes the server on host port 8888. The server logs appear in the terminal. Visiting http://<hostname>:8888/?token=<token> in a browser loads the Jupyter Notebook dashboard page. It is ephemeral, because Docker destroys the container after notebook server exit. This is because of the --rm label in the docker run command.

bash
# run the image
docker run --rm -p 8888:8888 jupyter/tensorflow-notebook

The image below shows a Notebook running from a Docker container.

Notebook running from Docker.
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Reclaim the local terminal by pressing control + c.