Suppose you have an application written in any programming language and it is working perfectly on your machine and you want to share it with your friend. But when your friend tries to run your application, it encounters bugs and doesn't work as it should.
One of the possible reasons could be your friend might have a different Operating System or his machine is missing a few dependencies required to run the application.
This is where Docker comes into play. But what is Docker and what does it do to solve this?? Let's start learning about Docker.
What is Docker?
Imagine owning many different toys like cars, dolls and building blocks. Every toy has its place to play and sometimes it can get messy if messed up. Like all toys, Docker has a separate playroom. Each program has its box (like a game room) where it can run without interfering with other programs. This makes it easy for everything to set up and run smoothly.
Docker is an open-source platform used to deliver software in packages called containers. Containers are isolated from one another and are standalone executable packages that contain everything required to run an application, including the code, runtime environment etc. Multiple containers can communicate with each other via networking mechanisms.
How to get started?
Docker is compatible with various operating systems, including Windows, macOS and Linux. Also, Docker provides a straightforward GUI (Graphical User Interface) that lets you manage your containers, applications, and images directly from your machine.
You can head over to Docker Docs to get started with installing and running Docker on your system or you can watch any YouTube video for installing Docker on your operating system.
Docker CLI
The Docker CLI (Command-Line Interface) is a command-line tool that allows you to interact with Docker. It provides a set of commands that you can run to perform various Docker operations.
Here are some Docker commands that are commonly used:
docker pull [image-name]: This will pull/download the image from a registry to your machine.
docker run [image-name]: This will create and start a new container from an image. If the image is not present on your system it will first pull it.
docker stop [container-name | container-id]: This will stop the container with the mentioned container-name or container-id.
docker ps: This will list all the running containers.
docker ps -a: This will list all the containers including running and previously stopped containers.
docker images: This will list all the images present on your system.
docker rmi [image-name]: This will remove the image with the mentioned name from your system.
docker rm [container-name | container-id]: This will remove the container with the mentioned name from your system.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Docker is a powerful tool for containerization that simplifies software deployment and management. Containers are isolated from one another and are standalone executable packages that contain everything required to run an application. It is becoming increasingly essential in the field of software development.