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Containers
Containers can be thought of as lightweight, stand-alone, and executable software packages that include everything needed to run a piece of software, including the code, runtime, libraries, environment variables, and config files. Containers isolate software from its surroundings, ensuring that it works uniformly across different environments.
Why Use Containers?
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Portability: Containers ensure that applications work consistently across different platforms, be it a developer's laptop or a production server. This eliminates the "it works on my machine" problem.
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Efficiency: Containers are lightweight since they use shared resources without the overhead of a full-fledged operating system. This enables faster startup times and reduces resource usage.
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Scalability: Containers can be effortlessly scaled up or down according to the workload, making it ideal for distributed applications and microservices.
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Consistency: Containers enable developers, QA, and operations teams to have a consistent environment throughout the application lifecycle, leading to faster and smoother deployment pipelines.
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Security: Containers provide a level of isolation from other containers and the underlying host system, which aids in maintaining application security.
Working with Containers using Docker CLI
Docker CLI offers several commands to help you create, manage, and interact with containers. Some common commands include:
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docker run: Used to create and start a new container. -
docker container ls: Lists running containers. -
docker container stop: Stops a running container. -
docker container rm: Removes a stopped container. -
docker exec: Executes a command inside a running container. -
docker logs: Fetches the logs of a container, useful for debugging issues.