Importance of Tags in Docker

• Format is <image-name>:<tag>
• Ex: openjdk:8, jenkins:1.609.2
• In docker if the tag is not specified, LATEST is applied

FROM tomcat   ===  FROM tomcat:LATEST

• note: in FROM instruction always specify tag and also while building images

Dockerfile instructions

Entrypoint

• Create a Dockerfile with some cmd

FROM openjdk:8
RUN wget https://war-jar-files.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/spring-petclinic-2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["java", "-jar", "spring-petclinic-2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar"]

• create a docker image (for tag use ddmmyy)

docker image build -t spc:280120 .
docker image build -t spc:1.0-280120

• list the docker images

docker image ls
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
spc                 1.0-280120          4c0dd4eb112b        59 seconds ago      536MB
spc                 280120              4c0dd4eb112b        59 seconds ago      536MB
openjdk             8                   8c6851b1fc09        5 days ago          488MB

# for spc:280120 and 1.0-280120 we have same image id, same image id means same image to docker 

• To create a container

docker container run -d -p 8080:8080 spc:280120
# creates a new container and runs CMD from Dockerfile

docker container run -d -p 8081:8080 spc:280120 echo helloworld
# Creates a new container and CMD in Dockerfile will be overriden with echo helloworld 

• Entrypoint instruction also executes when creating a new container, the differnce with CMD is ENTRYPOINT cannot be overriten.
• When you have written both ENTRYPOINT and CMD, ENTRYPOINT will be executable and CMD will be arguments

FROM openjdk:8
ENTRYPOINT ["echo"]
CMD ["hello"]

• Now if we run a container after creating the image (demo)

docker container run image
# hello

docker container run image how are you
how are you

• Containers will be alive as long as the command in ENTRYPOINT and CMD instruction is executing

Other instructions

• LABEL: This instruction adds metadata

FROM openjdk:8
LABEL author=khaja
LABEL org=qt

• ADD and COPY:
  • These instructions are used to copy the external files (file from host or from http(s)) into the docker image
  • ADD and copy both takes two arguments source and destination
  • ADD can copy the contents from file system and URLs
  • COPY can copy the contents only from file system

FROM openjdk:8
ADD https://war-jar-files.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/spring-petclinic-2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar /spring-petclinic-2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["java", "-jar", "spring-petclinic-2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar"]