What is Container?
A lightweight, isolated process that packages code and its dependencies together.
A container is a standard unit of software that packages code and all its dependencies — runtime, libraries, config files — so the application runs reliably across different environments. Containers use Linux namespaces for isolation and cgroups for resource limits. Unlike VMs, containers share the host OS kernel, making them much lighter. Docker popularized containers; the OCI standard now defines the container image and runtime specifications.
Deep Dive Guide
docker beginners guide
Related Terms
More Containers Terms
BuildKit
Next-generation Docker image build engine with parallel builds and better caching.
Container Image
A read-only template with layers used to create containers.
Container Registry
A repository for storing, versioning, and distributing container images.
Dockerfile
A text file with instructions for building a container image layer by layer.
Docker Compose
A tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications using YAML.
Multi-stage Build
A Dockerfile pattern using multiple FROM stages to create smaller, leaner final images.
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