This chapter will cover the basics of using Windows Containers with Docker.
First, make sure the Docker installation is working correctly by running docker version. The output should tell you the basic details about your Docker environment:
> docker version
Client:
Version: 17.06.1-ee-1
API version: 1.30
Go version: go1.8.3
Git commit: 4dd6e94
Built: Sat Aug 12 01:34:13 2017
OS/Arch: windows/amd64
Server:
Version: 17.06.1-ee-1
API version: 1.30 (minimum version 1.24)
Go version: go1.8.3
Git commit: 4dd6e94
Built: Sat Aug 12 02:14:08 2017
OS/Arch: windows/amd64
Experimental: true
The
OS/Archfield tells you the operating system you're using. Docker is cross-platform, so you can manage Windows Docker servers from a Linux client and vice-versa, using the samedockercommands.
Next, pull a Docker image which you can use to run a Windows container:
docker image pull microsoft/windowsservercore
This downloads Microsoft's Windows Server Core Docker image onto your environment. That image is a full deployment of Windows Server 2016 Core edition (with no UI), packaged to run as a Docker container. You can use it as the base for your own apps, or you can run containers from it directly.
Try a simple container, passing a command for the container to run:
docker container run microsoft/windowsservercore hostname
69c7de26ea48
This runs a new container from the Windows Server Core image, and tells it to run the hostname command. The output is the machine name of the container, which is actually a random ID set by Docker. Repeat the command and you'll see a different host name every time.
You package your own apps in Docker by building a Docker image. You share the app by pushing the image to a registry - it could be a public registry like Docker Cloud, or a private registry running in your own environment like Docker Trusted Registry. Anyone with access to your image can pull it and run containers - just like you did with Microsoft's public Windows Server Core image.
Pushing images to Docker Cloud requires a free Docker ID. Storing images on Docker Cloud is a great way to share applications, or to create build pipelines that move apps from development to production with Docker.
Register for an account, and then save your Docker ID in a variable in your PowerShell session. We will use it in the rest of the lab:
$dockerId = '<your-docker-id>'
Be sure to use your own Docker ID here. Mine is
sixeyed, so the command I run is$dockerId = 'sixeyed'.
Docker images are built with the docker image build command, using a simple script called a Dockerfile. The Dockerfile describes the complete deployment of your application and all its dependencies.
You can generate a very simple Dockerfile with PowerShell:
'FROM microsoft/windowsservercore' | Set-Content Dockerfile
'CMD echo Hello World!' | Add-Content Dockerfile
And now run docker image build, giving the image a tag which identifies it with your Docker ID:
docker image build --tag $dockerId/hello-world .
Run a container from the image, and you'll see it just executes the instruction from the CMD line:
docker container run $dockerId/hello-world
Hello World!
Now you have a Docker image for a simple Hello World app. The image is the portable unit - you can push the image to Docker Cloud, and anyone can pull it and run your app for themselves. First run docker login with your credentials, to authenticate with the registry. Then push the image:
docker image push $dockerId/hello-world
Images stored on Docker Cloud are available in the web interface and public images can be pulled by other Docker users.
Continue to Step 3: Multi-Container Applications, to see how to build and run a web application which uses a SQL Server database - all using Docker Windows containers.