I wanted practice with Docker, so I could have another way of deploying my app to production aside from using gh-pages. Many of my dream companies build microservices with Docker containers, so I wanted to learn more.
First, I wanted the latest version of Docker.
I like to use the Docker Desktop App, which also updates the Docker CLI automatically, so I updated Docker from the Mac desktop app with "Check for Updates...". This updated Docker Desktop to 2.2.0.5 and Docker CLI to 19.03.8 (from 18.09.2).
I ran docker run hello-world to test my CLI and I got:
Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.
To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
(amd64)
3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
to your terminal.
To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
$ docker run -it ubuntu bash
Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
https://hub.docker.com/
For more examples and ideas, visit:
https://docs.docker.com/get-started/
I think it's awesome to keep the official Docker documentation in mind and to keep referencing them throughout the learning process.
I decided to follow this tutorial that uses an nginx web server: https://makeitnew.io/dockerizing-modern-web-apps-32ecdb24bc2e. I like this tutorial because it starts out with a very simple Dockerfile and a very lightweight and simple image. An image could be as large as an entire Linux distribution, so it's nice to start small with a simple nginx server.
I was able to write a simple Dockerfile:
FROM nginx
COPY index.html /usr/share/nginx/html
I built the image and ran it:
docker build -f Dockerfile -t dojo .
docker run -p 8888:80 dojo
I visited http://localhost:8888/ and the html was serving, but the React files weren't being built and minified properly with parcel, and my React DevTools said "This page doesn't appear to be using React."
This made me realize I need to understand a lot more about bundling and delivering the app files to a web server. I began thinking that I needed more steps like yarn install in my Dockerfile and that I need a web server like Express with Node.js in order to run my React app. This led me to some practice in the next step:
I followed a tutorial here and documented my learnings: https://github.com/hashbangash/react-app-dockerized.
I used npm instead of yarn and I used a brand new create-react-app app instead of my dojo app, but I was hoping I would be able to apply the knowledge to eventually dockerize my dojo app with yarn.
Additionally, this taught me about docker, docker-compose, images, containers, and node.js official docker images.