Node with Docker

Hey Friends 👋

Let's try putting a NodeJs🟢 application (express server or any other node application) in a container

We will be using docker specifically 🐳

---

First lets create an express application

Run npm init -y to create an empty package.json

This generates our package.json with the following contents

{
  "name": "express-basic-application",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Basic Node App with Express",
  "main": "app.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node app.js"
  },
  "author": "Naseel Niyas",
  "license": "ISC"
}

Now run npm i express or yarn add express to install express. It will add express as a dependency on your package.json file

Now, lets create an app.js file and open it up in a code editor

Enter the following code in app.js

// Basic Express setup
const express = require('express');

const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello there');
})


app.listen(3000)

---

Creating our Dockerfile

The next important part of containerizing our app is to create a Dockerfile

Type in the following code on a file named Dockerfile (no extensions!)

FROM node:14

WORKDIR /app

COPY package.json /app

RUN npm install

COPY . /app

CMD ["npm", "start"]

---

Time to run our container! 📦

Making sure that you have docker installed, run:

docker build -t image-name . ~ This creates the image on our local system

Then run the command docker run -it -p 5000:3000 to start our server!

You can now navigate to http://localhost:5000/

And there we go!

We got what we wanted! 🎊🎊

If you want a more in depth tutorial do check out my video on the same 😊

Got Stuck? Grab the source code!

Byeee friends keep coding! 👋👨‍💻