Complete Series · 12 Phases

Docker Complete Series

A structured learning path from first container to production-grade deployments. Master images, Dockerfiles, Compose, networking, security, CI/CD pipelines and Kubernetes migration — all with practical code examples.

Session A — Fundamentals

Phase 1Fundamentals

Images, Containers and the Docker Daemon

Docker architecture, image layers, container lifecycle, port mapping, environment variables and container inspection commands.

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Phase 2CLI

CLI Mastery: Essential Commands and Workflows

Output formatting with Go templates, filtering containers and images, build flags, Docker contexts and scripting patterns.

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Phase 3Dockerfile

Dockerfile Best Practices: Layers and Caching

Layer caching strategy, instruction ordering, .dockerignore, COPY vs ADD, ARG vs ENV, non-root users and BuildKit cache mounts.

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Phase 4Compose

Docker Compose: Multi-Container Applications

Service definitions, depends_on with health checks, env files, named volumes, override files for dev/prod and Compose watch mode.

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Phase 5Networking

Networking: Bridge, Host, Overlay and Custom Networks

Network drivers, built-in DNS resolution, network isolation patterns, custom Compose networks and overlay for Swarm.

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Phase 6Storage

Volumes and Storage: Persistent Data Strategies

Named volumes vs bind mounts vs tmpfs, volume drivers for cloud storage, database backup and restore, and sharing between containers.

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Phase 7Multi-Stage

Multi-Stage Builds: Production-Ready Slim Images

Node.js SPA with Nginx, Next.js standalone, Go binary, Python with uv, distroless images, test stages and image size targets.

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Session B — Production

Phase 8Security

Security: Rootless Containers, Secrets and Scanning

Non-root users, rootless Docker mode, Docker secrets, BuildKit secret mounts, read-only containers, capabilities, seccomp and image scanning with Trivy.

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Phase 9Registry

Registry: Hub, ECR, GHCR and Private Registries

Docker Hub, GitHub Container Registry, AWS ECR with OIDC, self-hosted Harbor, tagging strategies, retention policies and pull-through cache.

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Phase 10CI/CD

CI/CD: GitHub Actions and GitLab Pipelines

BuildKit layer caching in CI, smart tagging with metadata-action, multi-platform builds, service containers for tests and parallel pipelines.

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Phase 11Monitoring

Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana and Loki

cAdvisor container metrics, Prometheus configuration, Grafana dashboards, Loki log aggregation with Promtail, alerting for OOM kills and restarts.

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Phase 12Kubernetes

Docker to Kubernetes: Migration Path

Compose to K8s concept mapping, Kompose conversion, Deployments and Services, ConfigMaps and Secrets, PVCs, health probes, HPA and PodDisruptionBudget.

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Reference

Docker Command Reference Cheat Sheet

Quick-access reference for all Docker commands: containers, images, volumes, networks, Compose, Buildx, registry and system cleanup.

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