[atonse]

I am slightly embarrassed to say, even when I see all these folks say amazing things about how Docker made their lives easier, I still can't wrap my head around exactly what it is. (This when I KNOW I want jail-like isolation between many of my rails apps on one server)

Is it like a jail in BSD? Ok but then what are the chef-like recipes for? (the docker recipe-like stuff is leading me to think that)... I get the benefits of shipping containers, but what does this do for Quotas? for differing paths? How does it solve init.d vs Upstart vs launchd issues?

Also, on index.docker.io, how do I view these recipes? What do they look like?

Hopefully there's a youtube video out there where a speaker gets a little less abstract and more detailed about where these pieces fit in, actually looking at an SSH prompt on a server.

[StavrosK]

High-level overview: You get an image (an actual filesystem image). You "docker run" some command, which creates a container (container is to image what VM is to, well, disk image, the container is what runs). Any change to this container doesn't change the base image, but it's done on a separate one. You can commit at any point and "freeze" the container's image and get back to it. You can start and stop the container at any time, but you can only run one starting process in it (so you might want to run sshd or supervisord).

That's pretty much the gist. It's a VM where snapshots are free, you can clone it at any point and branch off, and it's really lightweight to run. Basically, think of it as the child of VirtualBox and git.

[chanux]

I can't say I had exactly your problem. I was working with lxc for quite some time now and it's basically what is underneath docker.

What I really had a problem with is getting to know the docker way of doing things. It took a bit of a time for me to get an idea of it and I feel like I'm still not there yet (2-3 weeks working with it with a lot of troubles getting it to work initially). If you keep going at it, it WILL dawn on you. Cool stuff.

[julien421]

Hey Antonse,

Does this presentation help you understand? http://www.docker.io/about/

[atonse]

I've seen this presentation and it's a great higher-level introduction to the benefits. The shipipng container analogy is great. Where I'm stuck now is how that maps to "what do I type in SSH, and how is it modifying my server's filesystem?" - just the getting started phase. But this page (https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/wiki/Docker-external-reso...) seems to be really helpful.

[shykes]

Yeah, it's hard to find the balance between "big picture" explanation and more concrete examples...

This wiki page might help: it's full of various Docker resources: articles, tutorials, etc. https://github.com/dotcloud/docker/wiki/Docker-external-reso...

[shykes]

There's also this Pycon lightning talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW9CAH9nSLs

[sgrove]

This talk was brilliant by the way, well done on it. Really happy to see a lot of movement around docker, seems like it's really hit a nerve.