Introduction to Docker

Talk to be given at ManLUG at some point in the future, possibly November 2019.

Separation of sites

Hardware

• Most robust level of separation.
• Good option for clients who are large enough to warrant their own server anyway.

Virtualisation

• From the operating system point of view, almost the same as hardware (it is sometimes possible to work out that an OS is running on virtualised hardware as opposed to the physical hardware).

Shared hosting

• Separate by directories and users.
• Causes problems if web server does not run as same user as the site owner.
• Often possible to access other users' data via vulnerabilities, shared directories (e.g. /tmp for sessions).

Containers

• Sits between shared hosting and virtualisation

Installing Docker

• Use the upstream repositories rather than your distribution, as new versions are released frequently.
• docker help - like many command line tools, Docker offers general help as well as specific subcommands