Track 2: Docker

You've got Linux fundamentals down — shell, permissions, processes, bash scripting. This track builds on that directly: a container is just a Linux process with restricted views of the filesystem, network, and process table, and almost every Docker concept maps back to something you already know (chroot, namespaces, cgroups, ps, file permissions).

By the end of this track you'll be able to build images, run and network containers, persist data with volumes, write multi-container apps with Compose, optimize and secure images, push images to a registry, and deploy a containerized app to Azure two different ways (Azure Container Instances and Azure App Service).

How this track works

• Modules are numbered — go in order. Each one only uses Docker concepts introduced in an earlier module of this track, plus the Linux knowledge you already have.
• Every module (except this index and the capstone) follows the same shape: Why this matters, Concepts, Command reference, Hands-on exercises, Common mistakes & troubleshooting, and a Checkpoint quiz.
• Do the exercises in a real terminal as you go — don't just read them. Several exercises deliberately ask you to break something and then fix it, because that's how the errors stop being scary.
• Exercises say explicitly whether they expect a WSL2 Ubuntu terminal (with Docker Desktop's WSL integration enabled) or PowerShell (mainly for Azure CLI work, where it's the more natural shell on Windows). Either shell can run docker and az once configured, but the exercises pick whichever is more idiomatic for the task.
• Modules 10 and 11 use your Azure subscription for real. Every Azure exercise ends with cleanup commands — run them. Nothing here is expensive if torn down promptly, but Azure Container Instances and App Service both bill while resources exist.
• You don't need to download any sample project. Where a module needs a runnable app, the exercise has you create a tiny self-contained example (a minimal Flask app plus its Dockerfile) inline with a text editor or a cat > file <<'EOF' ... EOF here-doc, so every module stands on its own with nothing to clone or copy from elsewhere.
• Docker Desktop's GUI is treated as a first-class tool alongside the CLI. Most modules show you where the same information or action lives in Docker Desktop (the Containers, Images, and Volumes tabs, a container's Logs/Inspect/Terminal/Files sub-tabs, and Settings), so you can cross-check what the commands do against what the GUI shows.

Prerequisites

• Comfortable with a Linux shell: navigating, permissions (chmod, chown), processes (ps, kill, signals), and basic bash scripting. If any of that is shaky, go back to ../01-linux/README.md first.
• Windows 11 with Docker Desktop installed, WSL2 backend enabled (module 00 walks through this from scratch if you haven't done it yet).
• An active Azure subscription (needed from module 10 onward).

Modules

Total: roughly 13-20 hours of focused work, depending on how much you repeat exercises (you should repeat them).

Start here → 00-setup-docker-desktop-wsl2/README.md

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