docker

I was inspired by BowTiedChukar’s guide to setting up BTCPay Server using LunaNode, so I spent some time reading the BTCPay docs to get more familiar. The 3rd party route through LunaNode is an excellent one, since you are only outsourcing the client-facing invoice aspect. They never take possession of your bitcoin, so I consider it a safe choice. However I’m a maniac purist, and I wanted to host it myself. [Read More]

In the last post, we explored the idea of grouping and isolating related containers into separate networks. Isolation of services is inherently part of working with Docker, and a major reason why it’s so successful. Savvy admins cian use this to their advantage, reducing the attack surface of mission-critical applications. If you can control how traffic gets into your containers, you minimize the ability for compromise. If you are operating an Internet-facing server, odds are good that you’re exposing more than one service. [Read More]

In the last post, we learned how to assemble a multi-container stack to serve a single web application (WordPress). This post will complete our Docker-specific exploration, and future posts will build upon the skills we’ve learned here. We will: Organize Docker application stacks on the file system Isolate application stacks with dedicated networks Discuss best practices for image versioning Discuss running a stack in the console vs. detaching Discuss update mechanisms (automatic vs. [Read More]

In the last post, we spent a long time talking about containers and celebrated with a very simple nginx web server setup. In this one, we will delve into some intermediate topics and learn how to: Define containers with a text configuration file, instead of individually on the command line Change container behavior with environmental variables Define dedicated volumes for persistent storage Connect multiple containers to build a web application The Web Stack In the early days of web hosting, it was common to see the LAMP acronym, which represents Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. [Read More]

We learned about virtual machines earlier, which will give you a decent foundation for containers. The virtual machine approach is wonderful when you want to maintain strict separation between different operating systems. It dedicates storage, memory, and CPU to the VM, so that “power” is effectively taken from the host OS. The guest OS (inside the VM) runs its own complete stack, from the kernel all the way up to the user interface components. [Read More]