By now you are hearing a lot about Windows Containers, or Containers technology in general, but have not felt the need to get engaged with them yet. Or, by now, you are interested enough to begin researching the deployment of your first Windows 2019 Container Server.
If these are some of your concerns, then this blog will help you get started with Microsoft Windows 2019 Containers, and to be specific, how to deploy these Windows 2019 Container features.
Windows Containers are not a new feature of the Windows Operating System. Microsoft introduced Containers with its Windows 2016 release and kept improving the support of the Containers feature based on the Docker Enterprise Edition.
The installation of Containers on Windows 2019 is made easy by using the PowerShell commands described in this blog post. I will take you through these steps, and will introduce several commands to help you get started. So let’s begin.
Deploying Containers on Windows 2019 Core
To start the deployment of Windows 2019 Core Server, you will need equipment and software meeting these specifications:
- Windows Server 2019, Windows Server version 1803, Windows Server version 1709, Windows Server 2016, or Windows 10 on the host system, and Windows Server (Full, Core) in the virtual machine,
- At least 4 GB RAM available,
- A processor with Intel VT-x if you are going to enable Hyper-V isolation,
- The Container host VM will also need at least two virtual processors,
- The latest updates applied.
After the specifications above are validated, start Powershell using the following command:
Start Powershell
Next, run the following PowerShell commands to enable the Container feature on the core server:
- First, install the Docker-Microsoft PackageManagement Provider from the PowerShell Gallery.
Install-Module -Name DockerMsftProvider -Repository PSGallery -Force
- Next, you use the PackageManagement PowerShell module to install the latest version of Docker
Install-Package -Name docker -ProviderName DockerMsftProvider
- When PowerShell asks if you trust the package source ‘DockerDefault’, type
Ato continue the installation. When the installation is complete, reboot the computer
- When PowerShell asks if you trust the package source ‘DockerDefault’, type
Restart-Computer -Force
With those commands executed successfully, the Windows Container features will be installed and ready for your commands on the core server.
Get Started with your first-ever Windows Containers
The first command I use after I have completed the deployment is to check the Container version (Docker), and determine if the Client and the Server are running.
docker version
- If you do not see the Server Engine running, then you can start it using the following command:
start-service docker
- The second command is to deploy your first Container. Use the following command to deploy a .Net windows nano server.
docker run microsoft/dotnet-samples:dotnetapp-nanoserver-1809
Useful Containers Commands
The following commands will help you get started with Windows Containers. Get comfortable with using these commands on your Containers before you move to the really cool stuff.
Start with these four basic Docker commands; you will not be able to proceed without them:
- Check downloaded images:
docker images
- Check Running Containers
docker ps & Docker ps -l
- Start/Store Container
docker start [container ID]
- Remove a Container
docker rm [container ID]
Summary
With this first quick Windows 2019 Container blog post, I showed you how to deploy Windows 2019 Containers on Windows 2019 Core Server, in addition to deploying your first Container. My aim is to keep the Containers topic warm on my blog. I will release a blog every month or so where I will talk about a different topic related to Windows Containers, based on my experiences in the field. I hope this blog post was informative and encourages you to get started with Windows Containers.
To learn more about Windows Containers, visit the link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/about/
