Installing Docker

In last few recipes, we learned about LXD, an operating system container service. Now, we will look at a hot new technology called Docker. Docker is an application container designed to package and run a single service. It enables developers to enclose an app with all dependencies in an isolated container environment. Docker helps developers create a reproducible environment with a simple configuration file called a Dockerfile. It also provides portability by sharing the Dockerfile, and developers can be sure that their setup will work the same on any system with the Docker runtime.

Docker is very similar to LXC. Its development started as a wrapper around the LXC API to help DevOps take advantage of containerization. It added some restrictions to allow only a single process to be running in a container, unlike a whole operating system in LXC. In subsequent versions, Docker changed its focus from LXC and started working on a new standard library for application containers...