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A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

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What is Docker? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi! Im new to self hosting. Currently i am running a Jellyfin server on an old laptop. I am very curious to host other things in the future like immich or other services. I see a lot of mention of a program called docker.

search this on The internet I am still Not very clear what it does.

Could someone explain this to me like im stupid? What does it do and why would I need it?

Also what are other services that might be interesting to self host in The future?

Many thanks!

EDIT: Wow! thanks for all the detailed and super quick replies! I've been reading all the comments here and am concluding that (even though I am currently running only one service) it might be interesting to start using Docker to run all (future) services seperately on the server!

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Please don't call yourself stupid. The common internet slang for that is ELI5 or "explain [it] like I'm 5 [years old]".

I'll also try to explain it:

Docker is a way to run a program on your machine, but in a way that the developer of the program can control.
It's called containerization and the developer can make a package (or container) with an operating system and all the software they need and ship that directly to you.

You then need the software docker (or podman, etc.) to run this container.

Another advantage of containerization is that all changes stay inside the container except for directories you explicitly want to add to the container (called volumes).
This way the software can't destroy your system and you can't accidentally destroy the software inside the container.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

It's basically like a tiny virtual machine running locally.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 50 minutes ago

I know it's ELI5, but this is a common misconception and will lead you astray. They do not have the same level of isolation, and they have very different purposes.

For example, containers are disposable cattle. You don't backup containers. You backup volumes and configuration, but not containers.

Containers share the kernel with the host, so your container needs to be compatible with the host (though most dependencies are packaged with images).

For self hosting maybe the difference doesn't matter much, but there is a difference.