Hands-on guide series
Docker & Compose on a VPS: A Hands-On Guide
A four-part, hands-on guide to Docker without the cargo-culting: your first container, building your app's image, a real app-plus-database stack with Compose, and running it safely in production. Every command tested on a live server.
What you will build
Security is layers, not a switch. Each part closes a different category of attack, from the automated sweep that finds a brand-new server, to the day one gets in anyway. Read them in order, or jump to what you need.
- 1
Your First ContainerA beginner guide to Docker on a VPS: run your first container in one command and learn the image versus container difference that trips people up.8 min - 2
Building Your App's ImagePackage a Node app into a small, non-root Docker image. Build it with a Dockerfile and learn why layer caching and COPY order decide rebuild speed.8 min - 3
A Real Stack with ComposeDescribe your whole stack, the app plus a Postgres database, in one Docker Compose file. Bring it up with one command and connect services by name.8 min - 4
Compose in ProductionTake a Docker Compose stack to production: restart policies, resource limits, HTTPS out front, and the security defaults that contain a container breach.9 min