Creating Dockerfiles, Dockerignore, and Docker Compose

One of the best ways to automate Docker to build images automatically is by using a Dockerfile. A Dockerfile is a simple text document that contains all the commands that a user could call on the command line to assemble an image.

In this tutorial, we shall show you a step-by-step process of creating a Dockerfile for nodeJS application, creating Dockerignore, and docker-compose.

Creating a Dockerfile, Dockerignore, and Docker Compose

1. Dockerfile

We shall create the Dockerfile inside the source directory.

vim Dockerfile

First of all, define from what image we want to start the build. Here I have added my alpine Linux docker image, which includes nodejs10 and NPM. Follow our Docker image and docker hub guide to create docker images and pull them to the docker hub.

FROM ddarshana/alpinenode10

The MAINTAINER command shows the author of the generated images.

MAINTAINER darshana (D.Darshana@fosslinux.com)

The RUN command is used to execute any commands. Here we install a curl package on Alpine Linux.

RUN apk add --update curl && rm -rf /var/cache/apk/*

Create a new Directory called App, which is going to hold the application code inside the image.

RUN mkdir /app

The WORKDIR directive is used to set where the command defined with CMD is to be executed.

WORKDIR /app

Copy package.json file.

COPY package.json .

Install nodeJS application and dependencies.

RUN npm install

Bundle app source.

COPY . .

Download the environment variable file. In our case, we have a separate location to store global configurations.

RUN curl -O https://demofiles.fosslinux/nodejs/.env

Run Application, and it will start on the default 3000 port.

CMD ["npm", "start"]

Here is our full Dockerfile.

FROM ddarshana/alpinenode10

MAINTAINER darshana (D.Darshana@fosslinux.com)

# Install "curl" package
RUN apk add --update curl && rm -rf /var/cache/apk/*

# Create app directory
RUN mkdir /app

WORKDIR /app

# copy package.json

COPY package.json .

# Install app dependencies
RUN npm install

# Bundle app source
COPY . .

# Download environment variable file from our network location

RUN curl -O https://demofiles.fosslinux/nodejs/.env

# Run APP
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Save and exit the file. Here is my NodeJs App Code Directory.

Nodejs APP Code

2. Creating a Dockerignore file

Using the “dockerignore” file prevents our local modules and other unwanted files from being copied onto the Docker image and the possibility of overwriting modules installed within your image. We highly recommend you to use it along with Dockerfiles.

The Dockerignore file should be in the same directory as the Dockerfile.

vim .dockerignore

Here we added the following contents:

.env
Dockerfile
node_modules
test
.vscode
.eslintrc.js

Save and exit the file.

Build a Docker image

docker build . -t fosslinuxdemo/nodejsapp

Build Image

It should take some time to complete the process. Please be patient.

Image Created

List Docker images

Run the following the command to list images:

docker images

List Images

Run Docker image

docker run -itd -p 3000:3000 fosslinuxdemo/nodejsapp

-itd:- executes the container in the background

-p:- flag redirects a public port to a private port inside the container

4. Docker Compose

Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, we shall use a YAML file to configure the application services. After that, with a single command, we shall create and start all the services from our configuration.

Install Compose

Before installing the composer, you need first to install Docker.

Run this command to download the current stable release of Docker Compose:

curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.25.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Apply executable permissions to the binary:

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Test the installation:

docker-compose --version

Docker Composer Install

5. Installing WordPress and MySQL using Docker Compose

Create a folder for your project:

mkdir /opt/fosslinuxdemo

Go to the created directory:

cd /opt/fosslinuxdemo

Here we shall create data directories for our MySQL container and WordPress container.

mkdir data
mkdir html

We will mount the above directories to our containers.

Create a composer file:

vim docker-compose.yml

Here is our docker-compose file. Copy the following contents to your file.

version: '3.7'
services:
db:
container_name: fosslinux-mysql
restart: always
image: mysql:5.7
volumes:
- /opt/fosslinuxdemo/data:/var/lib/mysql
command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: 123456
MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
MYSQL_USER: wordpress
MYSQL_PASSWORD: wordpress
ports:
- "3306:3306"
networks:
- fosslinux_net

wp:
container_name: fosslinux-wp
restart: always
volumes:
- "/opt/fosslinuxdemo/html:/var/www/html"
depends_on:
- db
image: wordpress
ports:
- "80:80"
environment:
WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db:3306
WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: wordpress
networks:
- fosslinux_net
networks:
fosslinux_net:

Create file and Directories

Note the version number. More details of versioning @ composer file version.

version: '3.7'

services:
db:

A service in Compose is a running container, and service definitions specify information about how each container will run. Our “db” service definition has various options.

container_name: fosslinux-mysql

• Specifies a name for the container

restart: always

• Defines the container restart policy

image: mysql:5.7

• MySQL 5.7 official docker image 
• Wordpress  Official docker image 

volumes:https://hub.docker.com/_/mysql
- /opt/fosslinuxdemo/data:/var/lib/mysql

Here we mount volume “/opt/fosslinuxdemo/data ” to the “/var/lib/mysql “directory on the container. Generally, it is the standard data directory for MySQL on most distributions.

command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password

This option specifies a command to override the default CMD instruction for the image.

environment:

Define environment variables. Here we set MySQL variables.

 ports:
- "3306:3306"

• Port mapping.

networks:
- fosslinux_net

• Defines a network for the container

depends_on:
- db

This represents our containers will start in order of dependency, with the “wp” container beginning after the “db” container.

Now we can create our environment.

 docker-compose up -d

-d flag, which will run containers in the background.

Creating Environment

List docker containers:

docker ps -a

Created Containers

Check logs of WordPress Container:

docker logs -f fosslinux-wp

Now go to the web browser and type your IP to get the WordPress installation window.

WordPress Installation

Proceed to click on, continue, and complete the WordPress installation process.

That’s all about working with Dockerfiles and Docker Compose. I hope you enjoyed the article.