Docker Cookbook

Chapter 4. Docker Configuration and Development

4.0 Introduction

If you have read all the chapters so far, you have learned all the basics of using Docker. You can install the Docker engine, start and manage containers, create and share images, and you have a good understanding of container networking including networking across multiple hosts. This chapter will now look at more advanced Docker topics, first for developers and then for configuration.

Recipe 4.1 looks at how to configure the Docker engine, then Recipe 4.2 shows how to compile Docker from source. Recipe 4.3 presents how to run all the tests to verify your build and Recipe 4.4 shows how to use this newly built binary instead of the official released Docker engine.

Developers might also want to look at the nsenter utility in Recipe 4.5. While not needed for using Docker, it is of use to better understand how Docker leverages Linux namespaces to create containers. Recipe 4.6 is a sneak peek at the underlying library used to managed containers. Originally called libcontainer, runc has been donated to the Open Container Initiative to be the seed source code to help drive a standard for container runtime and image format.

To dive deeper into configuration and how to access the Docker engine, Recipe 4.7 presents how to access Docker remotely and Recipe 4.8 introduces the application programming interface (API) exposed by Docker. The Docker client uses this API to manage containers. Accessing this API remotely and securely ...