Docker for Windows and Windows containers

Hi, I’m once again playing around with Docker for Windows. Specifically Windows based containers at the moment as we have some apps that run full framework I would like to, at least try, to move to Docker. At the least to make it easier for us developers as we are in the process of splitting a lot of these apps up into smaller pieces.

But I have to ask, is anyone actually doing this with Docker for Windows. I seem to keep running into obstacles?

One of the irritating facts is that on windows you can’t access the container on the mapped localhost port, you have to use the container ip:port, an ip address that changes every time you run the container.

Another one I just ran into is the access from the container to the host. I know the purist will say you should containerize your local MSSQL etc, but for new developers it’s just easier. At least to start with to actually have access to the host resources from the container during development. Ok, you can provide your local host IP address in an environment variable, but that IP will be different for each developer. That is just a pain. Why is the “docker.for.win.localhost” hostname only available on Linux containers!?

Anyone have experience developing using Windows Containers on Docker for Windows? Do you have some tricks up you sleeves to make it a better experience?

Hi There,

If you don’t want to use the localhost for containers access create a transparent network on your Windows Server 2016 host and each container will receive its own IP address either from the DHCP server or static.