About this Book
Docker in Action’s purpose is to introduce developers, system administrators, and other computer users of a mixed skillset to the Docker project and Linux container concepts. Both Docker and Linux are open source projects with a wealth of online documentation, but getting started with either can be a daunting task.
Docker is one of the fastest-growing open source projects ever, and the ecosystem that has grown around it is evolving at a similar pace. For these reasons, this book focuses on the Docker toolset exclusively. This restriction of scope should both help the material age well and help readers understand how to apply Docker features to their specific use-cases. Readers will be prepared to tackle bigger problems and explore the ecosystem once they develop a solid grasp of the fundamentals covered in this book.
This book is split into three parts.
Part 1 introduces Docker and container features. Reading it will help you understand how to install and uninstall software distributed with Docker. You’ll learn how to run, manage, and link different kinds of software in different container configurations. Part 1 covers the basic skillset that every Docker user will need.
Part 2 is focused on packaging and distributing software with Docker. It covers the underlying mechanics of Docker images, nuances in file sizes, and a survey of different packaging and distribution methods. This part wraps up with a deep dive into the Docker Distribution project.
Part 3 explores multi-container projects and multi-host environments. This includes coverage of the Docker Compose, Machine, and Swarm projects. These chapters walk you through building and deploying multiple real world examples that should closely resemble large-scale server software you’d find in the wild.
This book is about a multi-purpose tool, and so there is very little “code” included in the book. In its place are hundreds of shell commands and configuration files. These are typically provided in POSIX-compliant syntax. Notes for Windows users are provided where Docker exposes some Windows-specific features. Care was taken to break up commands into multiple lines in order to improve readability or clarify annotations. Referenced repositories are available on Docker Hub (https://hub.docker.com/u/dockerinaction/) with sources hosted on GitHub (https://github.com/dockerinaction). No prior knowledge of Docker Hub or GitHub is required to run the examples.
This book uses several open source projects to both demonstrate various features of Docker and help the reader shift software-management paradigms. No single software “stack” or family is highlighted other than Docker itself. Working through the examples, the reader will use tools such as WordPress, Elasticsearch, Postgres, shell scripts, Netcat, Flask, JavaScript, NGINX, and Java. The sole commonality is a dependency on the Linux kernel.
Jeff Nickoloff builds large-scale services, writes about technology, and helps people achieve their product goals. He has done these things at Amazon.com, Limelight Networks, and Arizona State University. After leaving Amazon in 2014, he founded a consulting company and focused on delivering tools, training, and best practices for Fortune 100 companies and startups alike. If you’d like to chat or work together, you can find him at http://allingeek.com, or on Twitter as @allingeek.
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