Docker for Developers: From Zero to Production Deployment

Navigate a dockerized Ubuntu shell and master 10 essential Linux commands—pwd, ls, cd, clear, cat, mkdir, rm, tab completion, and history recall—to cover 90% of server work.

Learn to manage files and permissions in Docker containers to support reliable production deployment for developers.

Pack your application and its environment into a Docker container to guarantee the same behavior from laptop to test server to production.

Explore what a container is by running an nginx container with Docker run, and learn that containers are isolated processes, not virtual machines, -d, -it, and pulling from Docker Hub.

Learn the container life cycle by running in detach mode, naming containers, and mapping host ports (e.g., 8081 to 80), manage with docker ps, logs, start, stop, restart, and remove.

Learn how Docker image naming, tagging, and sharing work, including registry, username, and tag semantics, and how to pull, tag, and push images with proper authentication for production.

Clean up docker resources by removing stopped containers, unused images, and volumes, and clearing build cache using docker rm, docker container prune, docker image prune, and docker system prune.

Review core docker concepts, including containers, container life cycle, images, volumes, and networking, to reinforce practical deployment skills from zero to production.

Learn how a Dockerfile acts as a receipt that Docker follows to produce the same image every time, with predictable and remittable results for your app.

Explore how the build context governs what files Docker sends to the engine, and how the .dockerignore file excludes large folders like node_modules and git to speed up builds.

Optimize Docker builds by ordering Dockerfile instructions to maximize layer caching, placing rarely changing steps above frequently changing code, and copying bucket.json and bucket lock.json before npm install.

Explains the roles of run, cmd, and entrypoint; shows build time vs run time, how npm install adds image layers, and that cmd is overrideable while entrypoint is not.

Learn to run a container as a non-root by using the node user, preventing root access on the host and improving production security.

Recap of docker compose basics: define services, use service names for networking, pass environment variables, add health checks, and use local compose for development.

Review the fundamentals of Nginx, including using ByteMouse with files and writing effective Nginx configurations. Prepare to apply these skills to a real-world project in the next session.

Explore the deploy flow architecture and production stack, including Next.js frontend, Express backend, BullMQ worker, Postgres, Redis, and Nginx, with Docker Compose and routing.

Create docker files for the web and a worker, install dependencies with npm, build the Next.js app on node.js, run in production, and configure nginx to proxy the API.

Learn to write a docker-compose.yaml for a Postgres service, configure environment vars, volumes, and health checks, and understand service naming and .env placeholders.

Learn how to configure a docker compose workflow for a worker and a web service, set up environment and health checks, map ports, and ensure api health for production deployment.

Explore how to share a docker network across multiple apps with an edge gateway strategy, using an external web gateway network, nginx config, and joined docker compose setups.

Initialize the database by mapping init.xql and running the one-time db init; connect with vsql to the notification database, then remove the postgres data volume to reinitialize.

Create a non-root deploy user, add to the sudo and docker groups, and update the system to prep for docker deployment.

Set up a domain for deployment by buying a domain from a provider such as Cloudflare or Namecheap, then configure DNS records with your VPS IP and enable proxying.

Set up TLS with certbot to enable HTTPS in a docker environment, configure nginx and a support service, use ACME challenge for TLS renewal every 10 hours.