Create and Run a Docker Image

5 min readMar 16, 2021

Step-by-step guide
If you do not have Docker Toolbox installed follow instructions on the Docker Toolbox download page (at https://www.docker.com/toolbox) to install and setup the Docker tools.

Java Application Environment:

a) Spring Based Web Application

b) Maven to build the project

c) Tomcat as Application Server

d) MySQL as Database

1. Open Project Directory -

In docker terminal, go to the root of your repository.

2. Create a Dockerfile -

Type command “touch Dockerfile” as shown below:

3. Open Dockerfile -

To add docker commands which will execute following tasks:

· Take JDK 8 and Tomcat 8 base image

· Copy tomcat conf file into docker — The file “tomcat-users.xml” is present in MyProj root folder.

· Install Maven

· Install MySQL Server

· Create a working dir in Linux VM.

· Copy source code into working directory — The “src” folder is present in MyProj root folder.

· Run Maven commands to build the code — The file “pom.xml” is present in MyProj root folder.

· Move generated WAR file to Tomcat webapps folder

· Move database schema file to working directory — The file “projddl.sql” is present in MyProj root folder.

· Run MySQL commands to create a database and import the schema file

To open Dockerfile for edit, type command “notepad Dockerfile&” as shown below:

Save the Dockerfile. Then press Enter in docker terminal to go to next prompt.

4. Build an image

To create an image of application, type command “docker build -t my-proj” as shown below: Where “my-proj” is the name of image that we would like to be created.

This uses the file ./Dockerfile in the root of the repo to make a Docker Image. Once build is successful following screen is displayed.

5. View Image -

When complete check the docker image has been created, within the command shell execute:

$ docker images

6. Run the docker image -

Within the command shell execute:

“ docker run -d -p 8080:8080 — name backend my-proj”

Here -p 8080:8080 exposes the docker image’s http internal port 8080 as port 8080 on the virtual machine the docker image is contained (and running) within.

7. Verify the Tomcat is running. -

Enter url: http://192.168.99.100:8080 . This will open up the Tomcat Admin console page

8. Verify the Application is running -

Enter url: http://192.168.99.100:8080/MyProj. This will open up the default landing page in your application

Front-end Application Docker

Frontend Application Environment:

a) ReactJS based frontend Application

b) NPM to build the dependency

c) Gulp to package the application

d) Nginx as Web Server

1. Open Project root folder -

Go to the root of repository where frontend code is:

2. Create a Dockerfile.

3. Open Dockerfile -

To add docker command which will execute following tasks:

· Take Node as the base image

· Create a working dir in linux vm

· Copy current directory source code into working directory

· Run NPM command to download dependencies

· Install Gulp

· Install Nginx

· Run Gulp command to build the project

· Copy dist folder inside Nginx default html folder

· Copy Nginx conf into Nginx directory inside linux vm

4. Build Image -

To create an image of application, execute following command:

"docker build -t my-frontcode ."

This uses the file. /Dockerfile in the root of the repo to make a Docker Image.

5. Verify Image -

When complete check the docker image has been created, within the command shell execute:

$ “docker images”

6. Run the docker image -

Within the command shell execute:

"docker run -p 80:80 --name frontend --link backend:backend my-frontcode"

Here -p 80:80 exposes the docker image’s http internal port 80 as port 80 on the virtual machine the docker image is contained (and running) within.