- What is Docker?
Docker is a containerization platform which packages your application and all its dependencies together in the form of containers so as to ensure that your application works seamlessly in any environment be it development or test or production.
Now you should explain Docker containers.
Docker containers, wrap a piece of software in a complete filesystem that contains everything needed to run: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries etc. anything that can be installed on a server. This guarantees that the software will always run the same,regardless of its environment.
You can refer the diagram shown below, as you can see that containers run on a single machine share the same operating system kernel, they start instantly as only apps need to start as the kernel is already running and uses less RAM.
Note:Unlike Virtual Machines which has its own OS Docker containers uses the host OS
As you have mentioned about Virtual Machines in your previous answer so the next question in this Docker Interview Questions blog will be related to the differences between the two.
2.What is Docker image?
Docker image is the source of Docker container. In other words, Docker images are used to create containers. Images are created with the build command, and they’ll produce a container when started with run. Images are stored in a Docker registry such as registry.hub.docker.com because they can become quite large, images are designed to be composed of layers of other images, allowing a minimal amount of data to be sent when transferring images over the network.
Tip: Be aware of Dockerhub in order to answer questions on pre-available images.
- What is Docker container?
This is a very important question so just make sure you don’t deviate from the topic and I will advise you to follow the below mentioned format:
Docker containers include the application and all of its dependencies, but share the kernel with other containers, running as isolated processes in user space on the host operating system. Docker containers are not tied to any specific infrastructure: they run on any computer, on any infrastructure, and in any cloud.
Now explain how to create a Docker container, Docker containers can be created by either creating a Docker image and then running it or you can use Docker images that are present on the Dockerhub.
Docker containers are basically runtime instances of Docker images.
4.What is Docker hub?
Docker hub is a cloud-based registry service which allows you to link to code repositories, build your images and test them, stores manually pushed images, and links to Docker cloud so you can deploy images to your hosts. It provides a centralized resource for container image discovery, distribution and change management, user and team collaboration, and workflow automation throughout the development pipeline.
- How is Docker different from other container technologies?
Docker containers are easy to deploy in a cloud. It can get more applications running on the same hardware than other technologies, it makes it easy for developers to quickly create, ready-to-run containerized applications and it makes managing and deploying applications much easier. You can even share containers with your applications.
If you have some more points to add you can do that but make sure the above the above explanation is there in your answer.
6.What is Docker Swarm?
You should start this answer by explaining Docker Swarn.
Docker Swarm is native clustering for Docker. It turns a pool of Docker hosts into a single, virtual Docker host. Docker Swarm serves the standard Docker API, any tool that already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts.
I will also suggest you to include some supported tools:
- Dokku
- Docker Compose
- Docker Machine
- Jenkins
7.What is Dockerfile used for?
Docker can build images automatically by reading the instructions from a Dockerfile.
Now I will suggest you to give a small definition of Dockerfle.
A Dockerfile is a text document that contains all the commands a user could call on the command line to assemble an image. Using docker build users can create an automated build that executes several command-line instructions in succession.
- Can I use json instead of yaml for my compose file in Docker?
You can use json instead of yaml for your compose file, to use json file with compose, specify the filename to use for
docker-compose -f docker-compose.json up
9.Tell us how you have used Docker in your past position?
Explain how you have used Docker to help rapid deployment. Explain how you have scripted Docker and used Docker with other tools like Puppet, Chef or Jenkins.
If you have no past practical experience in Docker and have past experience with other tools in a similar space, be honest and explain the same. In this case, it makes sense if you can compare other tools to Docker in terms of functionality.
10.How to create Docker container?
I will suggest you to give a direct answer to this.
We can use Docker image to create Docker container by using the below command:
| docker run -t -i command name |
This command will create and start a container.
You should also add, If you want to check the list of all running container with the status on a host use the below command:
| docker ps -a |
11.How to stop and restart the Docker container?
In order to stop the Docker container you can use the below command:
| docker stop container ID |
Now to restart the Docker container you can use:
| docker restart container ID |
- How far do Docker containers scale?
Large web deployments like Google and Twitter, and platform providers such as Heroku and dotCloud all run on container technology, at a scale of hundreds of thousands or even millions of containers running in parallel.
- What platforms does Docker run on?
I will start this answer by saying Docker runs on only Linux and Cloud platforms and then I will mention the below vendors of Linux:
- Ubuntu 12.04, 13.04 et al
- Fedora 19/20+
- RHEL 6.5+
- CentOS 6+
- Gentoo
- ArchLinux
- openSUSE 12.3+
- CRUX 3.0+
Cloud:
- Amazon EC2
- Google Compute Engine
- Microsoft Azure
- Rackspace
14.Difference between Docker Image and container?
Docker container is the runtime instance of docker image.
Docker Image does not have a state and its state never changes as it is just set of files whereas docker container has its execution state.
- What is the use case for Docker?
Well, I think, docker is extremely useful in development environments. Especially for testing purposes. You can deploy and re-deploy apps in a blink of eye.
Also, I believe there are use cases where you can use Docker in production. Imagine you have some Node.js application providing some services on web. Do you really need to run full OS for this?
Eventually, if docker is good or not should be decided on an application basis. For some apps it can be sufficient, for others not.
- How exactly containers (Docker in our case) are different from hypervisor virtualization (vSphere)? What are the benefits?
To run an application in virtualized environment (e.g. vSphere), we first need to create a VM, install an OS inside and only then deploy the application.To run same application in docker all you need is to deploy that application in Docker. There is no need of additional OS layer. You just deploy the application with its dependent libraries, the rest (kernel, etc.) is provided by Docker engine.This table from a Docker official website shows it in a quite clear way.
- How to know the container status?
Just fire docker ps –a to list out all running container with stauts (running or stopped) on a host
- Why do my services take 10 seconds to recreate or stop?
Compose stop attempts to stop a container by sending a SIGTERM. It then waits for a default timeout of 10 seconds. After the timeout, a SIGKILL is sent to the container to forcefully kill it. If you are waiting for this timeout, it means that your containers aren’t shutting down when they receive the SIGTERM signal.
There has already been a lot written about this problem of processes handling signals in containers.
To fix this problem, try the following:
Make sure you’re using the JSON form of CMD and ENTRYPOINT in your Dockerfile.
For example use [“program”, “arg1”, “arg2″] not”program arg1 arg2”. Using the string form causes Docker to run your process using bash which doesn’t handle signals properly. Compose always uses the JSON form, so don’t worry if you override the command or entrypoint in your Compose file.
-If you are able, modify the application that you’re running to add an explicit signal handler for SIGTERM.
-Set the stop_signal to a signal which the application knows how to handle:
-web: build: . stop_signal: SIGINT
-If you can’t modify the application, wrap the application in a lightweight init system (like s6) or a signal proxy (like dumb-init or tini). Either of these wrappers take care of handling SIGTERM properly.
- How do I run multiple copies of a Compose file on the same host?
Compose uses the project name to create unique identifiers for all of a project’s containers and other resources. To run multiple copies of a project, set a custom project name using the -p command line option or the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable.
- What’s the difference between up,run, and start?
Typically, you want docker-compose up. Use up to start or restart all the services defined in a docker-compose.yml. In the default “attached” mode, you’ll see all the logs from all the containers. In “detached” mode (-d), Compose exits after starting the containers, but the containers continue to run in the background.
The docker-compose run command is for running “one-off” or “adhoc” tasks. It requires the service name you want to run and only starts containers for services that the running service depends on. Use run to run tests or perform an administrative task such as removing or adding data to a data volume container. The run command acts like docker run -ti in that it opens an interactive terminal to the container and returns an exit status matching the exit status of the process in the container.
The docker-compose start command is useful only to restart containers that were previously created, but were stopped. It never creates new containers.
- Can I use json instead of yaml for my Compose file?
Yes. Yaml is a superset of json so any JSON file should be valid Yaml. To use a JSON file with Compose, specify the filename to use, for example:
# docker-compose -f docker-compose.json up
- Should I include my code with COPY/ADD or a volume?
You can add your code to the image using COPY or ADD directive in a Dockerfile. This is useful if you need to relocate your code along with the Docker image, for example when you’re sending code to another environment (production, CI, etc).
You should use a volume if you want to make changes to your code and see them reflected immediately, for example when you’re developing code and your server supports hot code reloading or live-reload.
There may be cases where you’ll want to use both. You can have the image include the code using a COPY, and use a volume in your Compose file to include the code from the host during development. The volume overrides the directory contents of the image.
- Do you already have a logging, monitoring, or mature deployment solution?
Chances are that your application already has a framework for shipping logs and backing up data to the right places at the right times. To implement Docker, you not only need to replicate the logging behavior you expect in your virtual machine environment, but you also need to prepare your compliance or governance team for these changes. New tools are entering the Docker space all the time, but many do not match the stability and maturity of existing solutions. Partial updates, rollbacks and other common deployment tasks may need to be reengineered to accommodate a containerized deployment.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. If you’ve already invested the engineering time required to build a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, containerizing legacy apps may not be worth the time investment.
- Will cloud automation overtake containerization?
At AWS Re:Invent, Amazon chief technology officer Werner Vogels spent a significant portion of his keynote on AWS Lambda, an automation tool that deploys infrastructure based on your code. While Vogels did mention AWS’ container service, his focus on Lambda implies that he believes dealing with zero infrastructure is preferable to configuring and deploying containers for most developers.
Containers are rapidly gaining popularity in the enterprise, and are sure to be an essential part of many professional CI/CD pipelines. But as technology experts and CTOs, it is our responsibility to challenge new methodologies and services and properly weigh the risks of early adoption. I believe Docker can be extremely effective for organizations that understand the consequences of containerization — but only if you ask the right questions.
- You say that ansible can take up to 20x longer to provision, but why?
Docker uses cache to speed up builds significantly. Every command in Dockerfile is build in another docker container and it’s results are stored in separate layer. Layers are built on top of each other.
Docker scans Dockerfile and try to execute each steps one after another, before executing it probes if this layer is already in cache. When cache is hit, building step is skipped and from user perspective is almost instant.
When you build your Dockerfile in a way that the most changing things such as application source code are on the bottom, you would experience instant builds.
You can learn more about caching in docker in this article.
Another way of amazingly fast building docker images is using good base image – which you specify in FROM command, you can then only make necessary changes, not rebuild everything from scratch. This way, build will be quicker. It’s especially beneficial if you have a host without the cache like Continuous Integration server.
Summing up, building docker images with Dockerfile is faster than provisioning with ansible, because of using docker cache and good base images. Moreover you can completely eliminate provisioning, by using ready to use configured images such stgresus.
# docker run –name some-postgres -d postgres No installing postgres at all – it’s ready to run.
Also you mention that docker allows multiple apps to run on one server.
It depends on your use case. You probably should split different components into separate containers. It will give you more flexibility.
Docker is very lightweight and running containers is cheap, especially if you store them in RAM – it’s possible to spawn new container for every http callback, however it’s not very practical.
At work I develop using set of five different types of containers linked together.
In production some of them are actually replaced by real machines or even clusters of machine – however settings on application level don’t change.
Here you can read more about linking containers.
It’s possible, because everything is communicating over the network. When you specify links in docker run command – docker bridges containers and injects environment variables with information about IPs and ports of linked children into the parent container.
This way, in my app settings file, I can read those values from environment. In python it would be:
import os VARIABLE = os.environ.get(‘VARIABLE’)
There is a tool which greatly simplifies working with docker containers, linking included. It’s called fig and you can read more about it here.
Finally, what does the deploy process look like for dockerized apps stored in a git repo?
It depends how your production environment looks like.
Example deploy process may look like this:
-Build an app using docker build . in the code directory.
-Test an image.
-Push the new image out to registry docker push myorg/myimage.
-Notify remote app server to pull image from registry and run it (you can also do it directly using some configuration management tool).
-Swap ports in a http proxy.
-Stop the old container.
You can consider using amazon elastic beanstalk with docker or dokku.
Elastic beanstalk is a powerful beast and will do most of deployment for you and provide features such as autoscaling, rolling updates, zero deployment deployments and more.
Dokku is very simple platform as a service similar to heroku.
Visit For More interview Question: Q & A
