What Is Docker React: Know To Dockerize A React App

How to Install Docker

In order to install Docker, navigate to the following link to download the Docker setup according to your machine configuration. To build your container, along with the container runtime specifications provided in the file named Dockerfile, Docker uses a layered filesystem.

Run docker --version in the Command prompt (CMD) to double-check if Docker is installed on your computer.

The following output is displayed (your system output may vary according to the version you download)

Docker version 20.10.11, build dea9396

How to Create a React Project

Here, we will learn to create a React app from scratch.

Before creating the react app in your system, make sure to download node.js in your system. If you don't have it installed, download it from here according to your system configurations.

Run the following command to create a react app in your favorite IDE or by navigating to the appropriate folder in your CMD.

npx create-react-app <your_app_name>

Do replace “<your_app_name>” with the name of your choice.

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Dockerizing a React App

To Dockerize a React App, we follow the given steps. 

• First, open and navigate the above-created react project using your preferred IDE. 
• We need to create the following three files regarding Docker in the root of the react project to Dockerize a React App. 
• Dockerfile: To successfully construct an image, the Dockerfile contains a set of instructions. This explicitly stores all the software we would be using in our project. For example, Node.js is needed for a React project. This Dockerfile is generally used for production purposes.
• Dockerfile.dev: The concept of Dockerfile.dev is similar to that of Dockerfile. The only difference is that the Dockerfile.dev is used for the local development environment, and Dockerfile is used for the production environment.
• docker-compose.yml: For running and defining multi-container Docker applications, a tool called Compose is used. We use a YAML file with Compose to configure our application’s services. Using a single command, we simultaneously create and start all of the services from our configurations. 

Coding the Dockerfiles

At the beginning of the project, Docker is unaware of the technologies used in the project, i.e., whether it runs on Node, React, NPM, Yarn, or even the project on the whole. For this reason, we need to inform Docker on which software to run our project explicitly. 

• Setting Up Dockerfile.dev 

We write the following code in the Dockerfile.dev file -

FROM node:alpine 

WORKDIR /app

COPY package.json /app

RUN yarn install

COPY .  /app

CMD [“yarn”, “run”, “start”]

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• Setting Up the docker-compose.yml

To chain all the docker services and commands together, we use Compose, a useful tool. Here, we will specify a service called the client and tell it what to do.

version: “3.8”

services:

   client:   

      stdin_open:  true

      build: 

          context: 

          dockerfile: Dockerfile.dev

      ports:

          -  “3000:3000”

      volumes:

          -  “/app/node_modules”

          -  “./:/app”

• Using Compose

After we are done writing all the configurations, we simply run the docker-compose up command, making Docker build everything for us. In this, all of the commands that we had declared in the Dockerfile.dev get executed, and the React file can be viewed at http://localhost:3000/

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Become a Docker Expert Today!

Docker in React is a technology that enables all our services and applications to run isolated in a container. By providing OS-level virtualization, Docker allows us to develop and run our applications regardless of the environment. This means that the particular software can be run on any machine by isolating the application from its environment.

To master and learn more about Docker React and all its applications and in-depth usage and get well-versed to get into full-stack development, one might consider referring and learning in-depth from various resources, study materials, and course books.

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