My Skill Lab
Cloud & DevOpsBeginner

Docker for Beginners

Images, containers, volumes, networks and Docker Compose.

Taught by Suman Ghimire · DevOps Engineer

What you'll learn

  • Run, inspect, debug and clean up containers with the Docker CLI
  • Write a Dockerfile that builds quickly by using layer caching and a .dockerignore file
  • Produce small, non-root production images with multi-stage builds and push them to a registry
  • Persist data with named volumes and use bind mounts for local development
  • Connect containers on user-defined networks and publish only the ports you need
  • Define and run a multi-service application with a single Docker Compose file

About this course

Docker is the container skill every cloud, DevOps and backend role now expects, and this beginner course teaches it from first principles with plenty of hands-on practice. It is written for developers, students, testers and system administrators who want to package applications so they run the same way on a laptop, a CI server and in the cloud. You will run and inspect containers, write a clean Dockerfile, understand image layers and the build cache, shrink images with multi-stage builds, push to a container registry, keep data safe with volumes, connect services on Docker networks and run a multi-service web app with Docker Compose. You only need basic command-line comfort; no prior container or cloud experience is required. By the end you will be ready for Kubernetes, cloud container services and CI/CD pipelines.

Course content

7 lessons
  1. 1Containers, Images and Why Docker MattersWhat a container really is, how it differs from a virtual machine, and your first docker run.Preview
  2. 2Working With Containers Day to DayRun, list, inspect, exec into, limit and clean up containers with confidence.
  3. 3Writing Your First DockerfilePackage a small Python web app, understand layers and make builds fast with the cache.
  4. 4Smaller, Safer Images and RegistriesMulti-stage builds, non-root users, sensible tags and pushing images to a registry.
  5. 5Volumes and Bind Mounts: Keeping Your DataWhy container data disappears, and how volumes, bind mounts and tmpfs keep it where you need it.
  6. 6Docker Networking Made ClearBridge networks, published ports and built-in DNS so containers can find each other safely.
  7. 7Multi-Service Apps With Docker ComposeDescribe a web app, database and cache in one compose.yaml and run the whole stack with one command.