Installing Docker

We will use Docker in this chapter. Even though the official documentation of Laravel suggests the use of Homestead with virtual machines and Vagrant, we chose to use Docker because it's fast and easy to start, and our main focus is on Laravel's core concepts.

As the Docker documentation states:

Let's install Docker, as follows:

1. Go to https://docs.docker.com/install/.
2. Choose your platform and follow the installation steps.
3. If you have any trouble, check the getting started link at https://docs.docker.com/get-started/.

As we are using Docker containers and images to start our application and won't get into how Docker works behind the scenes, here is a short list of some Docker commands:

Command:           Description:

docker ps            Show running containers

docker ps -a            Show all containers

docker start            Start a container

docker stop            Stop a container

docker-compose up -d            Start containers in background

docker-compose stop            Stop all containers on docker-compose.yml file

docker-compose start            Start all containers on docker-compose.yml file

docker-compose kill            Kill all containers on docker-compose.yml file

docker-compose logs            Log all containers on docker-compose.yml file