Start your homelab journey using docker

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What is Docker

Docker is an open-source platform that allows developers to easily develop, deploy, and run applications in containers. It enables software to be packaged into a portable and lightweight container that can run on any system regardless of its infrastructure.

A container is an isolated environment that contains everything an application needs to run, such as libraries, dependencies, and the code itself. Docker containers are lightweight, fast, and efficient, and they can be easily moved from one environment to another, making them an ideal choice for modern application deployment.

The main advantage of Docker is that it allows developers to create applications that can run consistently across different environments, from development to production. This is achieved through containerization, which ensures that the application environment is consistent, regardless of the underlying infrastructure.

How is a container different from a virtual machine?

Containers are an abstraction at the app layer that packages the code and dependencies. On the other hand, Virtual Machines are an abstraction of the physical hardware. This means that Virtual Machines can turn one server into multiple servers and containers can take advantage of the software in the virtual machine and create multiple containers. This is like inception, a service within the server within the virtual server. This makes it great for starting up and migrating of the microservices really quick.

The Beauty of Docker is that it can also run on many OS, from Windows to MacOS and Linux. You have no boundaries and the services will run the same way. 

How to install Docker

Now that you understand docker a little more, let’s get into how to get started with docker.

Whether you’re using Windows or Linux, steps are very similar.

Windows Install

Before starting to install Docker for Windows, it is important that you know that you will need to install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2).
You will also need to download the Docker Desktop for Windows.

Installing Windows Subsystem for Linux

First, you will need to open PowerShell as administrator and run the following command. 
 
wsl --install
 
 
Go ahead and restart your computer and then install the Docker Desktop for Windows App.
Let the installer load and click on Okay
 
  
The installer will do its thing and  then you will be prompted to restart one more time
 

Linux Install

Installing Docker on a Linux distribution is pretty straight forward.

  1. First, we would want to run a update of the configured sources.
    Run sudo apt update or sudo apt-get update depending on your linux distribution.
  2. Then we will need to run sudo apt install docker.io as well as sudo apt install docker-compose
  3. Verify that this has been successfully installed by running the following command: sudo docker -v or sudo docker-compose -v and it should return your docker version.

Final remarks

Docker is a useful tool to deploy containerized applications and it is very straight forward to install. There are many applications that can be deployed using Docker, from databases like MariaDB, mySQL and more to applications like NextCloud, Bitwarden, nginx, WordPress and many many more. 

On our next guide, I will walk you through how to deploy Docker applications and deploying a Docker management tool, called Portainer, using Docker. 

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