Learning docker through playing with it

Hi,

I’ve fiddled with computing on and off for a few years and recently the term ‘Docker’ has become very noticeable so I thought I’d best educate myself by having a play with it

I have a spare computer that I will install debian stretch onto. I’ll be using the netinst CD so pretty minimal. As a starting point I’m wondering if this is a good place to start or if there are additional services and features that are required to run docker before I start looking at the various docker images.

Longer term I hope to be able to build a web server where I can host a couple of wordpress sites.

In the past (an currently) I use a web hosting service. If I can get my head around this I would consider moving to a VPS and seeing if what I learn from playing with docker can be translated onto the VPS

I look forward to hearing from the community

argyrg

A good starting point is to work thru this self paced training:https://container.training/intro-selfpaced.yml.html

That really does look like a great starting point, however, I got to page 65/731 and the last bullet killed me…

“It’s better to spend time learning containers than fiddling with the installer”

I’m at the stage where I have to decide what system to build so I think that I very much do need to fiddle with the installer.

Unless someone tells me that other stuff currently on the computer like libre office and a dead apache installation with a bit of broken php/ mysql installations really don’t matter?

I’m probably going to wipe all of that and start again anyway but the real question is “Will a minimal net install have everything that I need to start working with Docker?”

Cheers

I never installed Docker on Debian. Though, it shouldn’t be that different than Docker on Ubuntu. Just follow the instructions on: https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/debian/

I would also agree that using the default installation is sufficient. There is no need to tweak anything ootb. Some people tend to figure out and apply all options before they spend time on containers. Well don’t :wink:

That was VERY helpful, thank you.

I’d found a similar procedure here but the link that you pointed me to had a couple of extra useful procedures and checks.

I started with the netinst CD of Debian and did very little to it other than install and configure openssh and generally make the site secure.

Having gone through the link that you provided and a couple of pointers from the tecadmin.net pages I gained a significant insight, namely, that once docker is installed I can then download a docker image of the Debian (or any other) OS and run everything that I need to with that.

Next step is to go back to page 65 and pick up from there.

Thanks again, I’m sure I’ll be back

argyrg

thank you! that was really useful to read this thread

Another option is to install VirtualBox and Vagrant and then install Docker on a vagrant.
I do all of my development and testing with this environment.
I have a sample Vagrantfile on this GitHub repository -> https://github.com/gforghetti/Vagrant-Docker-Swarm which brings up a 3 node Docker CE Swarm by just running vagrant up.

Usually I never comment on blogs but your article is so convincing that I never stop myself to say something about it. You’re doing a great job Man,Keep it up.