5.8 KiB
page_title: Dockerizing a Node.js Web App page_description: Installing and running a Node.js app with Docker page_keywords: docker, example, package installation, node, centos
Dockerizing a Node.js Web App
Note
:
- If you don't like sudo then see Giving non-root access
The goal of this example is to show you how you can build your own
Docker images from a parent image using a Dockerfile
. We will do that by making a simple Node.js hello world web
application running on CentOS. You can get the full source code at
https://github.com/enokd/docker-node-hello/.
Create Node.js app
First, create a directory src
where all the files
would live. Then create a package.json
file that
describes your app and its dependencies:
{
"name": "docker-centos-hello",
"private": true,
"version": "0.0.1",
"description": "Node.js Hello world app on CentOS using docker",
"author": "Daniel Gasienica <daniel@gasienica.ch>",
"dependencies": {
"express": "3.2.4"
}
}
Then, create an index.js
file that defines a web
app using the Express.js framework:
var express = require('express');
// Constants
var PORT = 8080;
// App
var app = express();
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
res.send('Hello world\n');
});
app.listen(PORT);
console.log('Running on http://localhost:' + PORT);
In the next steps, we'll look at how you can run this app inside a CentOS container using Docker. First, you'll need to build a Docker image of your app.
Creating a Dockerfile
Create an empty file called Dockerfile
:
touch Dockerfile
Open the Dockerfile
in your favorite text editor
and add the following line that defines the version of Docker the image
requires to build (this example uses Docker 0.3.4):
# DOCKER-VERSION 0.3.4
Next, define the parent image you want to use to build your own image on
top of. Here, we'll use
CentOS (tag: centos6
)
available on the Docker Hub:
FROM centos:centos6
Since we're building a Node.js app, you'll have to install Node.js as
well as npm on your CentOS image. Node.js is required to run your app
and npm to install your app's dependencies defined in
package.json
. To install the right package for
CentOS, we'll use the instructions from the [Node.js wiki](
https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Installing-Node.js-
via-package-manager#rhelcentosscientific-linux-6):
# Enable EPEL for Node.js
RUN rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
# Install Node.js and npm
RUN yum install -y npm
To bundle your app's source code inside the Docker image, use the COPY
instruction:
# Bundle app source
COPY . /src
Install your app dependencies using the npm
binary:
# Install app dependencies
RUN cd /src; npm install
Your app binds to port 8080
so you'll use the EXPOSE
instruction to have
it mapped by the docker
daemon:
EXPOSE 8080
Last but not least, define the command to run your app using CMD
which
defines your runtime, i.e. node
, and the path to our app, i.e. src/index.js
(see the step where we added the source to the container):
CMD ["node", "/src/index.js"]
Your Dockerfile
should now look like this:
# DOCKER-VERSION 0.3.4
FROM centos:centos6
# Enable EPEL for Node.js
RUN rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
# Install Node.js and npm
RUN yum install -y npm
# Bundle app source
COPY . /src
# Install app dependencies
RUN cd /src; npm install
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["node", "/src/index.js"]
Building your image
Go to the directory that has your Dockerfile
and run the following command
to build a Docker image. The -t
flag lets you tag your image so it's easier
to find later using the docker images
command:
$ sudo docker build -t <your username>/centos-node-hello .
Your image will now be listed by Docker:
$ sudo docker images
# Example
REPOSITORY TAG ID CREATED
centos centos6 539c0211cd76 8 weeks ago
<your username>/centos-node-hello latest d64d3505b0d2 2 hours ago
Run the image
Running your image with -d
runs the container in detached mode, leaving the
container running in the background. The -p
flag redirects a public port to
a private port in the container. Run the image you previously built:
$ sudo docker run -p 49160:8080 -d <your username>/centos-node-hello
Print the output of your app:
# Get container ID
$ sudo docker ps
# Print app output
$ sudo docker logs <container id>
# Example
Running on http://localhost:8080
Test
To test your app, get the the port of your app that Docker mapped:
$ sudo docker ps
# Example
ID IMAGE COMMAND ... PORTS
ecce33b30ebf <your username>/centos-node-hello:latest node /src/index.js 49160->8080
In the example above, Docker mapped the 8080
port of the container to 49160
.
Now you can call your app using curl
(install if needed via:
sudo apt-get install curl
):
$ curl -i localhost:49160
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Powered-By: Express
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 12
Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2013 03:53:22 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Hello world
We hope this tutorial helped you get up and running with Node.js and CentOS on Docker. You can get the full source code at https://github.com/enokd/docker-node-hello/.