Building Images

This lesson provides a brief introduction to containerization and sets the groundwork for the rest of the course.

In this lesson, we run through a few introductory examples to cover the basic syntax of Dockerfiles, configuring the application launch command, using tags appropriately, and controlling the build context.

In this lesson, we explore how Dockerfile configuration can impact application shutdown behavior. We also cover the layered nature of Docker images, the ability of layers to function as cache, and strategies for maximizing caching opportunities during image builds.

In this lesson we cover two basic strategies for improving security: setting the runtime user, and reducing the size and surface area of runtime images. We also look at two utilities — docker inspect and dive — for inspecting images.

Jib is a tool for building images from Java applications without using Docker or Dockerfiles. In this lesson we learn how to use Jib's Maven and Gradle build plugins to configure and build images.

In this lesson we learn about the Cloud Native Buildpacks project, which provides a simple though sophisticated approach for building images in a way that can be easily scaled and operationalized. We cover the motivations for the project, its API-based approach, and some of the implementations available in the ecosystem.

In this lesson we explore the features and functionality of Cloud Native Buildpacks using three tools (platforms) for building images: the pack CLI, Spring Boot build plugin, and kpack hosted service. We also explore the modularized buildpacks provided by Paketo Buildpacks for building images in a variety of languages.

Before you move onto the next course, let’s take a moment to review what we learned in the Building Images course.