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Docker containers

Cito supports deploying software in docker containers. You can spin up containers inside Cito using the docker CLI command.

If you wish to proxy traffic to those containers, you will need to create a 'Proxy Pass' site type.

This allows you to specify the IP & Port of your container and have Cito pass traffic to it using a domain name you specify.

This guide will demonstrate how to create a Proxy Pass site type and start a simple container.

Use admin

You should run these commands as the admin user unless otherwise specified.

Starting containers

To start a container you use the docker command. This must be prefixed with sudo.

For example, to run the nginx "hello, world" example container on port 8000 (mapped to port 80 inside the host) run:

sudo docker run -d -p 8000:80 nginxdemos/hello

You'll see the container name in the output. To validate the container is running, you can use sudo docker ps:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE              COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                     NAMES
3d000c52ea05   nginxdemos/hello   "/docker-entrypoint.…"   2 minutes ago   Up 2 minutes   0.0.0.0:8000->80/tcp, [::]:8000->80/tcp   friendly_bouman

This shows our container is running and the port it is bound to (8000) on the server. Next we can proceed to create our Proxy Pass site to direct traffic to it.

Creating the Proxy Pass site

Click 'Create site' in the top hand corner of the dashboard and select the "Proxy Pass" site type.

Create Site

In this example the Target is 127.0.0.1:8000 which is where our container runs.

Create Site

Once you have created your site you'll see it listed on the Sites page.

Create Site

You can click the Visit or Preview sites to see the container running:

Create Site

Further reading

The following resources may be helpful when working with Docker: