Containerization (Docker) training

Lesson 1 • Docker Architecture Overview

Covers the Docker daemon, client, registry, and object model. Connects architecture knowledge to understanding how Docker commands execute.

Lesson 2 • Core Docker CLI Basics

Introduces essential CLI commands for managing images and containers. Students gain confidence running, stopping, and inspecting containers from the terminal.

Lesson 3 • Installing and Configuring Docker

Guides installation on Linux, macOS, and Windows environments and verifies a working setup. Prepares students for hands-on work in subsequent sections.

Lesson 1 • Tagging, Pushing, and Pulling Images

Covers image naming conventions, semantic versioning tags, and registry authentication. Students publish and retrieve images from public and private registries.

Lesson 2 • Image Security and Scanning

Introduces vulnerability scanning, minimal base images, and non-root user practices. Establishes security habits early in the image-building workflow.

Lesson 3 • Multi-Stage Builds

Demonstrates separating build and runtime stages to eliminate build tools from final images. Reduces image size and attack surface significantly.

Lesson 4 • Understanding Docker Image Layers

Explains the union filesystem, copy-on-write strategy, and how layers are cached. Connects layer mechanics to build speed and image size optimization.

Lesson 1 • Container Lifecycle Management

Covers create, start, stop, restart, pause, and remove operations with practical examples. Students understand state transitions and when to use each command.

Lesson 2 • Resource Constraints and Limits

Demonstrates CPU, memory, and I/O limits using cgroup-backed Docker flags. Prevents runaway containers from degrading host performance.

Lesson 3 • Debugging and Inspecting Containers

Teaches log retrieval, exec-based shell access, and inspect output parsing. Students diagnose and resolve common container runtime issues efficiently.

Lesson 4 • Persistent Storage with Volumes

Distinguishes bind mounts, named volumes, and tmpfs mounts and their appropriate use cases. Students persist and share data reliably across container restarts.

Lesson 1 • Custom Bridge Networks

Shows how user-defined bridge networks provide automatic DNS resolution between containers. Replaces legacy link-based container communication.

Lesson 2 • Network Security and Isolation

Covers network segmentation, disabling inter-container communication, and encrypted overlay traffic. Students apply least-privilege networking to multi-tier applications.

Lesson 3 • Service Discovery Patterns

Explains embedded DNS, external DNS integration, and environment-variable-based discovery. Students implement reliable service lookup in containerized applications.

Lesson 1 • Docker Compose File Structure

Covers the Compose file schema: services, networks, volumes, and configs keys. Students read and write valid Compose files for real application stacks.

Lesson 2 • Environment-Specific Compose Configurations

Demonstrates using multiple Compose files and .env files to separate dev, test, and prod settings. Students avoid duplicating configuration across environments.

Lesson 3 • Compose CLI Workflow

Covers up, down, logs, exec, scale, and override commands for daily development use. Students manage full application lifecycle from a single CLI.

Lesson 4 • Managing Service Dependencies

Explains depends_on, condition-based startup ordering, and health-check integration. Students prevent race conditions in multi-service startup sequences.

Lesson 1 • Volume Lifecycle and Cleanup

Explains dangling volumes, prune commands, and volume labeling for lifecycle management. Students keep storage clean and prevent disk exhaustion on Docker hosts.

Lesson 2 • Data Management for Databases

Covers volume strategies for running relational and NoSQL databases in containers safely. Students avoid data loss and corruption in stateful container workloads.

Lesson 3 • Storage Driver Internals

Compares overlay2, devicemapper, and other storage drivers and their performance trade-offs. Students choose the appropriate driver for their host OS and workload.

Lesson 1 • Security Auditing and Compliance

Introduces Docker Bench for Security, CIS benchmark checks, and continuous image scanning integration. Students establish repeatable security audit workflows.

Lesson 2 • Docker Daemon Security

Covers TLS authentication for the Docker socket, rootless mode, and daemon configuration hardening. Prevents unauthorized access to the Docker control plane.

Lesson 3 • Runtime Security Controls

Demonstrates read-only filesystems, no-new-privileges flags, and user namespace remapping at runtime. Limits blast radius of a compromised container.

Lesson 4 • Image Supply Chain Security

Covers image signing, content trust, and provenance verification to prevent tampered image deployment. Students enforce trusted image policies in their pipelines.

Lesson 1 • Docker Host Maintenance

Covers system prune, image garbage collection, log rotation, and daemon update procedures. Students keep Docker hosts stable and free of resource bloat over time.

Lesson 2 • Health Checks and Self-Healing

Demonstrates HEALTHCHECK instruction, restart policies, and orchestrator-driven recovery. Students build containers that report health and recover from failures automatically.

Lesson 3 • Container Logging and Observability

Covers Docker logging drivers, structured log output, and integration with centralized log platforms. Students gain visibility into containerized application behavior.

Lesson 4 • Docker in CI Pipelines

Covers building, testing, and pushing images within CI pipeline stages using Docker-in-Docker and socket-mount patterns. Students automate image delivery on every commit.