Docker on OpenVZ - Quick Start Guide

Docker is a quick and efficient tool to deploy and run apps. It allows you to deploy apps in just one command, with a consistent platform and no messy dependency requirements.

HostUS offers an OpenVZ Docker template based on CentOS 7 allowing you to deploy Docker on your VPS in just one click.

Let's see the commands that docker has, as of version 1.7.1:

    attach    Attach to a running container
    build     Build an image from a Dockerfile
    commit    Create a new image from a container's changes
    cp        Copy files/folders from a container's filesystem to the host path
    create    Create a new container
    diff      Inspect changes on a container's filesystem
    events    Get real time events from the server
    exec      Run a command in a running container
    export    Stream the contents of a container as a tar archive
    history   Show the history of an image
    images    List images
    import    Create a new filesystem image from the contents of a tarball
    info      Display system-wide information
    inspect   Return low-level information on a container or image
    kill      Kill a running container
    load      Load an image from a tar archive
    login     Register or log in to a Docker registry server
    logout    Log out from a Docker registry server
    logs      Fetch the logs of a container
    pause     Pause all processes within a container
    port      Lookup the public-facing port that is NAT-ed to PRIVATE_PORT
    ps        List containers
    pull      Pull an image or a repository from a Docker registry server
    push      Push an image or a repository to a Docker registry server
    rename    Rename an existing container
    restart   Restart a running container
    rm        Remove one or more containers
    rmi       Remove one or more images
    run       Run a command in a new container
    save      Save an image to a tar archive
    search    Search for an image on the Docker Hub
    start     Start a stopped container
    stats     Display a stream of a containers' resource usage statistics
    stop      Stop a running container
    tag       Tag an image into a repository
    top       Lookup the running processes of a container
    unpause   Unpause a paused container
    version   Show the Docker version information
    wait      Block until a container stops, then print its exit code

If you need to know more about a command, simply run docker COMMAND --help for more information on a command.

Let's start with installing WordPress. We are going to use Tutum's WordPress image instead of Docker's as it comes bundled with a MySQL server.

After this is done, we can see that this image is now on our server ready for deployment:

REPOSITORY                  TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
docker.io/tutum/wordpress   latest              5025a6da41dd        3 months ago        493.6 MB

Let's run WordPress. The d flag makes it run as a daemon, and p flag specifies the port to run, in this case 80.

And that's it! You now have WordPress running on your VPS. You can access it by typing your VPS's IP in the browser, or use your domain name if it is pointed to that IP.

Docker is also surprisingly easy to manage, here are some of the most common commands (there is also a full list of commands above):
docker ps - list all running apps
docker rename {old} {new} - rename an app
docker start {id} - start an app
docker stop {id} - stop an app
docker rm {id} - remove a docker

Docker has lots more images available for you to deploy, make sure you have a look here: https://registry.hub.docker.com/

As always, if you have any queries about your HostUS service, just let us know. We hope you enjoy using Docker!