Docker in Practice

Docker in Practice is a hands-on guide for developers, DevOps beginners, cloud engineers, students, and career changers who want to build real Docker skills without getting lost in unnecessary theory. This book takes you from the basics of images and containers through practical Dockerfiles, multi-stage builds, environment variables, volumes, networking, health checks, resource limits, logs, Docker Compose, debugging, registries, and CI/CD. You will learn how to: Build and run Docker images with confidence Write practical Dockerfiles for real applications Reduce image size with multi-stage builds Manage persistent data with volumes Connect services with Docker networks Configure health checks and resource limits Read logs and diagnose broken containers Run multi-container applications with Docker Compose Tag and publish images to registries Build and test container images in CI/CD pipelines Apply an evidence-first troubleshooting method instead of guessing The book is built around practical workflows, short labs, common failure scenarios, and verification steps. You will deliberately break containers, inspect the evidence, diagnose the cause, make one controlled change, and verify the result. By the end, you will containerise a complete multi-service application using Docker and Docker Compose, with persistent storage, health checks, environment configuration, logging, and troubleshooting built into the workflow. If you want a practical path from "I understand what Docker is" to "I can build, run, inspect, and debug containers confidently," this book is designed to get you there.