Node.js on Containers

So now what if we wanted to run a container that Node in it? The default Ubuntu container doesn't have Node.js installed. Let's use a different container!

docker run -it node:12-stretch

The version here is we're using is Node.js version 12 and Stretch refers to the version of Debian (which is what the Node.js uses by default.)

Notice this drops us into the Node.js REPL which may or may not be what you want. What if we wanted to be dropped into bash of that container? Easy! You already know how!

docker run -it node:12-stretch bash

Remember, after we identify the container ([node][node]), anything we put after get's evaluated instead of the default command identified by the container (in the container node's case, it runs the command node by default). This allows us to run whatever command we want! In this case, we're exectuing bash which puts us directly into a bash shell.

So what flavor of Linux is the node image running? Honestly, I didn't even remember when I was writing this. But it's easy to find out! There's a file on every* Linux OS that has in it what sort of Linux it's running. If we run cat /etc/issue it'll show us what sort of Linux it is. cat is a way to output a file's contents to the terminal. Try running the two commands

docker run ubuntu:bionic cat /etc/issue # hopefully this shouldn't surprise you
docker run node:12-stretch cat /etc/issue # ????

We'll get into later how to select which Linux distros you should use but for now this is just a fun exercise.