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Docker Compose 101 Notes

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Docker Compose 101 Notes

Uploaded by

devopspracticeprajeet
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Akshat (akshu20791@gmail.

com)

What is Docker-Compose?

Docker-Compose is a tool provided by Docker. To make it simple, this


tool is implemented to solve architectural problems in your projects.

As you may have noticed in my previous article, we created a simple


program that displayed “Docker is magic!” when it was launched.

Unfortunately, when you are a developer, you rarely create a stand-


alone program (a program that does not require any other services to
run, such as a database).

However, how do you know if you need Docker-Compose? It’s easy if


your application requires several services to run, you need this tool.
For example, if you create a website that needs to connect to your
database to authenticate users (here 2 services, website, and database).

Docker-compose offers you the possibility to launch all these services


in a single command.

Difference between Docker and Docker-Compose

Docker is used to manage an individual container (service) for your


application.

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Akshat ([email protected])

Docker-Compose is used to manage several containers at the same


time for the same application. This tool offers the same features as
Docker but allows you to have more complex applications.

A typical use case

This tool can become very powerful and allow you to deploy
applications with complex architectures very quickly. I will give you a
concrete case study that will prove that you need it.

Imagine, you are the proud creator of your web software.

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Akshat ([email protected])

Your solution offers two websites. The first allows stores to create their
online store in a few clicks. The second is dedicated to customer
support. These two sites interact with the same database.

You are beginning to be successful, and your server is no longer


sufficient. So, you decide to migrate your entire software to another
machine.

Unfortunately, you didn’t use docker-compose. So you’re going to have


to migrate and reconfigure your services one after the other, hoping
nothing has been forgotten.

If you had used a docker-compose, in only a few commands, you would


have deployed your entire architecture on your new server. All you
have to do now is make a few configurations and load the backup of
your database to finalize the migration.

Now let’s create your first client/server-side application with


Docker-Compose

Now that you know what docker-compose is going to be used for, it’s
time to create your first client/server-side application!

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Akshat ([email protected])

The objective of this tutorial is to create a small website (server) in


Python that will contain a sentence. This sentence must be retrieved by
a program (client) in Python that will display the sentence.

1. Create your project

To create your first client/server application, I invite you to create a


folder on your computer. It must contain at root the following file and
folders:

• A ‘docker-compose.yml’ file (docker-compose file that will


contain the necessary instructions to create the different
services).

• A ‘server’ folder (this folder will contain the files necessary to


set up the server).

• A ‘client’ folder (this folder will contain the files necessary to


set up the client).

You should have this folder architecture:


.
├── client/
├── docker-compose.yml
└── server/2 directories, 1 file

2. Create your server

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Akshat ([email protected])

To start with reminders of Docker’s basics, we will start by creating the


server.

2a. Create files

Move to your ‘server’ folder and create the following files:

• A ‘server.py’ file (python file that will contain the server


code).

• An ‘index.html’ file (HTML file that will contain the sentence


to be displayed).

• A ‘Dockerfile’ file (docker file that will contain the necessary


instructions to create the environment of the server).

You should have this folder architecture in the following path ‘server/’:
.
├── Dockerfile
├── index.html
└── server.py0 directories, 3 files

You can add the following code to the ‘server.py’ file:

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This code will allow you to create a simple web server inside this folder.
It will retrieve the content of the index.html file to share it on a web
page.

2c. Edit the Html file

You can add the following sentence to the ‘index.html’ file:

2d. Edit the Docker file

Here we will create a basic Dockerfile that will be in charge of


executing our Python file. To do that, we are going to use the official
image created to execute Python.

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Akshat ([email protected])

3. Create your client

To continue with reminders of Docker’s basics, we will create the


client.

3a. Create files

Move to your ‘client’ folder and create the following files:

• A ‘client.py’ file (python file that will contain the client code).

• A ‘Dockerfile’ file (docker file that will contain the necessary


instructions to create the environment of the client).

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Akshat ([email protected])

Normally you should have this folder architecture in the following path
‘client/’:
.
├── client.py
└── Dockerfile0 directories, 2 files

3b. Edit the Python file

You can add the following code to the ‘client.py’ file:

This code will allow you to get the content of the server web page and
to display it.

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Akshat ([email protected])

3c. Edit the Docker file

As for the server, we will create a basic Dockerfile that will be in charge
of executing our Python file.

4. Back to Docker-Compose

As you may have noticed, we have created two different projects, the
server, and the client, both with a Dockerfile.

So far, nothing has changed from the basics you already know.

Now we are going to edit the ‘docker-compose.yml’ at the root of the


repository.

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Akshat ([email protected])

5. Build Docker-Compose

Once the docker-compose is set up, your client/server application need


to be built. This step corresponds to the ‘docker build’ command but
applied to the different services.
$ docker-compose build

6. Run Docker-Compose

Your docker-compose is built! Now it’s time to start! This step


corresponds to the ‘docker run’ command but applied to the different
services.

$ docker-compose up

There you go, that’s it. You should see “Docker-Compose is magic!”
displayed in your terminal.

Useful commands for Docker

As usual, I have prepared a list of orders that may be useful to you with
docker-compose.

• Stops containers and removes containers, images… created by


‘docker-compose up’.

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$ docker-compose down

• Displays log output from services (example: ‘docker-compose


logs -f client’).

$ docker-compose logs -f [service name]

• Lists containers.
$ docker-compose ps

• Executes command in a running container (example: ‘docker-


compose exec server ls’).

$ docker-compose exec [service name] [command]

• Lists images.
$ docker-compose images

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