So, I’ve been hearing about this docker thing for a while now. Poked at it a little bit, decided that it really wasn’t for me at the time. Mostly because I didn’t understand what it was all about and just figure it to be yet another software development tool.
I was partially right, and yet very very wrong.
I’m not going to give a run-down of what it is or how to use it. There are better folks than I who have already provided marvelous amounts of information on how to use it, and I’m still learning.
I have taken a shine to Docker Compose, and how can work for service management. For example, website hosting.
It’s allowed me to take my two blogs, run them in two separate environments with their own databases, and yet have them both accessible on the same box.
- Traefik (80/443 access management)
- wtfwasithinking.org
- scrawlings.wtfwasithinking.org
- falle.us (coming soon, maybe)
As a bonus, I didn’t have to fiddle with certs, traefik handles the routing and all the cert business.
Updates have been pretty easy to manage so far. Update the image, restart the container via compose.
The best thing I love about it though is now everything I need is tucked into a single directory. No more chasing down settings across the server when I want to spin up a new site to play with. Just a matter of pulling down the image and setting up a new compose file and directory. When I’m done with it, just shut it down and nuke the directory. Nice and simple compared to the various places configs would have to be updated.
Next up will be playing with the swarm function, not that I NEED such availability at home, but if I can use it to automate updates, all the better.