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Start with Docker’s first-container and image-building lessons, then progress to Docker Compose for multi-service apps, persistent data, and debugging. This guide groups 50 practical tutorial topics into a learning sequence so you can choose a next step based on what you already know and what you want to build. The linked tutorials are Docker-maintained documentation and labs; Docker’s broader guide index provides additional paths for advanced subjects.
How to use this Docker tutorial path
Follow the sections in order if Docker is new to you. If you already run containers, skip to the section that matches your goal: building images, combining services with Compose, or exploring development and operations topics. Each item names a skill to practice rather than implying that every subject is a separate official tutorial.
Docker describes its platform as tooling for developing, shipping, and running applications. A container runs an application in a loosely isolated environment. Start with Docker’s Get started with Docker page to choose an appropriate entry point for your operating system and task.
Beginner tutorials: understand Docker and run a container
These first tutorials focus on orientation, installation, and the basic container lifecycle. Use Docker’s Getting Started lab as the hands-on companion; it moves from first containers to building and running an image, with sharing to Docker Hub as an optional final step.
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- What Docker is: Learn the role of the platform and the difference between an application image and a running container. Read Get started with Docker.
- Choose and install Docker for your operating system: Identify the Docker product and setup instructions appropriate to your machine before following command-line examples. Begin at Get started with Docker.
- Run your first container: Work through the first-container portion of the Getting Started lab.
- Inspect a container’s output: Use the lab’s early exercises to observe what a running container does and inspect its output.
- Practice starting and stopping containers: Learn the basic lifecycle by repeating the first-container exercises and observing the state of each run.
- Explain image versus container: An image is the buildable package; a container is an instance running from that image. The Getting Started lab introduces both in context.
- Explore Docker’s model of containerization: Read Get started with Docker before moving into image construction.
- Run the same application more than once: Revisit the first-container exercises and notice that a container is a running instance rather than the image itself.
- Choose a learning goal: Docker’s entry page directs learners toward different tasks, including building and sharing an application. Use Get started with Docker to select a route.
- Complete the first-container lab: Finish the introductory sequence in the Getting Started lab before attempting to build your own image.
Build your first image with a Dockerfile
A Dockerfile is a set of instructions for building an image. A Compose file, by contrast, describes running services and their configuration. The distinction is useful: first package one application, then use Compose when it needs other services. Docker’s Getting Started lab provides a guided path through a Dockerfile, image build, and image run.
- Write a basic Dockerfile: Follow the lab’s Dockerfile exercise and identify how its instructions define the image.
- Select a base image: Practice reading the starting image declaration in a Dockerfile and understanding that later instructions build on that base.
- Set a working directory: Add a working directory appropriate to the app’s files so subsequent build instructions have a clear location.
- Copy application files: Include only the files needed to build or run the application.
- Install application dependencies: Add the dependency-installation step required by the app, then build the image using the lab as a model.
- Build an image from the Dockerfile: Complete the image-build section of the Getting Started lab.
- Run a container from your image: Follow the lab’s image-run exercise and confirm the app starts.
- Observe rebuild behavior: Change an input file and rebuild to see how image-building instructions and their inputs affect the resulting image.
- Keep unnecessary files out of the build context: Add a
.dockerignorefile for files the image does not need. In particular, exclude.envwhen appropriate; Compose’s quickstart warns that build-context contents are sent to the daemon, so leaving sensitive configuration in the context can include it in an image layer. See Docker Compose Quickstart. - Review the Dockerfile/Compose distinction: Use What is Docker Compose? to understand when a single image definition is no longer enough.
Package and share an application
Once an image builds and runs locally, try Docker’s Node.js-oriented Getting Started lab as a complete application example. Publishing is not required to learn: the lab’s Docker Hub sharing step is optional, so you can stop after building and running locally if that meets your goal.
- Apply the image-building sequence to an application: Use the lab’s Node.js example to connect application files, a Dockerfile, a build, and a running container.
- Check the local result first: Confirm the application works from the locally built image before considering distribution.
- Learn the sharing workflow only if needed: Follow the lab’s optional Docker Hub section when you want to share the image; it is not a prerequisite for local development.
Run a multi-service application with Docker Compose
Use Compose when an application needs multiple services. Docker’s current Compose Quickstart uses a Python Flask app and Redis to demonstrate the transition from one container to a small application stack. The quickstart also builds on the distinction between a Dockerfile, which describes an image, and a Compose file, which defines services and their configuration.
- Read a Compose service definition: Work through the quickstart’s Flask-and-Redis example and identify the services and their settings.
- Start and stop the application stack: Use the lifecycle flow in the Compose Quickstart rather than managing each service as an unrelated container.
- Let services connect by name: Compose creates a default application network; services on it can discover each other by service name. Configure an app to use the Redis or database service name instead of relying on a container IP address. See Networking in Compose.
- Add a health check: The quickstart uses a health check and a startup condition to address a race in which an application starts before its dependency is ready.
- Use Compose Watch while developing: Follow the quickstart’s watch exercise to work with application changes during development.
- Split configuration across Compose files: Try the quickstart’s multiple-file structure when separating or extending configuration is useful.
- Inspect service logs: Use the quickstart’s logging exercise to trace what the services report.
- Run a command inside a running service: Practice the quickstart’s in-service command exercise when you need to inspect or interact with a container from the Compose application.
Make Compose data and configuration safer
Containers can be recreated; data stored only in a container’s writable layer should not be treated as durable application storage. The Compose quickstart demonstrates named-volume persistence and shows that explicitly removing a volume removes its stored data.
- Persist state with a named volume: Follow the named-volume exercise in Docker Compose Quickstart when service data should survive container recreation.
- Understand destructive cleanup: The quickstart notes that
docker compose down -vremoves the named volume and the data stored in it. Do not use the volume-removal option if you need to keep that state. - Keep secrets out of the build context: Exclude
.envfrom the build context in.dockerignorewhen appropriate. The quickstart explains that context contents are sent to the daemon, which is why unnecessary or sensitive files should not be casually included. - Configure the application with environment variables: Work through the quickstart’s configuration material and distinguish runtime configuration from files needed to build an image.
Debug a Compose application
When a multi-service app fails, troubleshoot at the level where the failure occurs: configuration, service startup, logs, or network discovery. The Compose Quickstart includes practical exercises in logs, commands inside a running service, and Compose file organization; Networking in Compose explains service-name discovery.
- Inspect the Compose configuration: Review service names, settings, and dependencies in the Compose file before changing application code.
- Read service logs: Check the relevant service’s output to determine whether it started successfully or reports an application error.
- Run an inspection command inside the service: Use the quickstart’s in-service command pattern to examine the running environment.
- Check dependency readiness: If a service starts before its dependency is ready, apply the health-check and startup-condition approach demonstrated by the quickstart.
- Check service addressing: On the default Compose network, use the configured service name for discovery rather than an IP address that may change.
Explore Docker tutorials beyond the basics
After you can build an image and manage a Compose application, choose a specialist path that fits your project. Docker’s Docker guides index covers languages and frameworks, testing, CI/CD, security, databases, deployment, administration, and hands-on labs. These are different entry points, not a single beginner sequence; choose based on your existing application and operational needs.
Quick Recap
- Language- and framework-specific containerization: Select a guide that matches the application you are packaging.
- Testing containerized applications: Explore testing guidance after you can build and run the app reliably.
- CI/CD workflows: Use the CI/CD path when you want to connect image building to an automated delivery process.
- Databases: Study database-oriented guidance alongside Compose networking and persistence.
- Deployment and administration: Move to these guides when your goal extends beyond local development.
- Security: Use the security materials as a dedicated path; a working Dockerfile or Compose file alone does not establish that an application is secure.
- Hands-on labs: Choose a lab when you want a guided practical exercise rather than reference material.
Suggested next step by experience level
| Where you are | Best next step | What you should be able to do afterward |
|---|---|---|
| New to containers | Complete the first-container exercises in the Getting Started lab. | Explain the difference between an image and a running container, and run a first container. |
| Can run containers, but have no image of your own | Work through the Dockerfile and image-build exercises in the Getting Started lab. | Build and run an image for an application. |
| Have a local image and want to share it | Use the lab’s optional Docker Hub sharing section. | Understand the sharing flow; publishing is optional for local learning. |
| Need a web app and a dependency | Complete the Flask-and-Redis Compose Quickstart. | Define services, connect them on a Compose network, and manage them as an application stack. |
| Need reliable state or development iteration | Continue with the quickstart’s health check, Compose Watch, named-volume, and configuration exercises. | Handle readiness, development changes, and persistent data in the example stack. |
| Ready for a specialist topic | Choose a subject from Docker guides. | Follow a relevant language, testing, CI/CD, database, deployment, administration, or security path. |
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