Chapter 4. Day-to-day Docker
This chapter covers
- Using and managing Docker volumes for persistent shared data
- Learning your first Docker patterns: the data and dev tools containers
- Using GUI applications within Docker
- Manipulating the Docker build cache for fast and reliable builds
- Visualizing your Docker image lineage in a graph
- Running commands directly on your containers from the host
As you develop software with Docker you will discover you have various needs that arise. You may grapple with running GUIs from a container, run into confusion around the Dockerfile build cache, want to manipulate your containers directly while in use, wonder about the lineage of your images, want to reference data from an external source, and so on.
This chapter takes you through techniques that show you how to handle these and other concerns that may arise. Think of it as your Docker toolbox!
Containers are a powerful concept, but sometimes not everything you want to access is ready to be encapsulated. You may have a reference Oracle database stored on a large cluster that you want to connect to for testing. Or maybe you have a large legacy server already set up with binaries that can’t easily be reproduced.