In my previous blog article I gave a short introduction into Docker (“an open-source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container that will run virtually anywhere”). In this article we’ll check out how to create an image for Tomcat 7 and the Java 7 JDK as dependency.
So, let’s go ahead and do some ‘coding’. First, you need to install docker. Instructions can be found here. I already mentioned you need a Linux system with a modern kernel, so if you happen to be a Mac or Windows user, there are instructions on linked pages on how to use Vagrant to easily setup a virtual machine (VM) to use. For now we’ll work locally, but once you start installing servers you might find the Chef project to install docker useful as well.
As a first step after installation, let’s pick the first example from the Docker getting started page and create an Ubuntu 12.04 container, with completely separated processes, its own file system and its own network interface (but with network connection via the host), and have it print “hello world”. Do this by running
docker run ubuntu /bin/echo hello world
Cool huh? You probably just ran something on a different OS than that of your own machine or (in case you’re on Windows/Mac) the VM in which Docker is running! In this command ubuntu defines the image (found automatically as it is one of the standard images supplied by Docker). The run command creates an instance of the image (a container), feeding it /bin/echo hello world as the command to execute.
