What exactly is a container?

Introduction and agenda#

This course will help you understand and demistify docker, so you will have the confidence necessary to use it and deploy it in any project. Having a strong foundation will help you understand and manage containers at any scale.

High level overview#

• Chapter 1: What exactly is a container (Basic network, namespaces, docker)?
• Chapter 2: What exactly is an image (Building and working with images)?
• Chapter 3: What exactly is a volume (working with persistent data)?
• Chapter 4: Advanced scenarios, Security, rootless containers and more.

This page will only cover chapter 1.

Try it yourself#

Drive the Docker daily-driver loop, run, ps, exec, stop, rm, in the guided terminal below.

What is a container, really?#

A container is not magic, it is a few Linux primitives working together. These two labs run on a REAL Linux kernel (compiled to WebAssembly) right in your browser. First, isolate the filesystem with chroot:

Then add process and hostname isolation with namespaces, and you have built a container by hand, exactly what Docker automates for you:

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