Running Your First Container

Now that you understand images and containers, it’s time to run one!

Example: The “Hello World” of Docker

The simplest way to verify your Docker installation and learn the workflow is by running the hello-world image.

Run this command in your terminal:

docker run hello-world

What Happens Behind the Scenes?

When you run docker run hello-world, Docker follows these steps:

1. Check Locally: Docker looks for the hello-world image on your computer.
2. Download (Pull): If it’s missing, it automatically downloads it from Docker Hub.
3. Create: Docker creates a new container based on that image.
4. Run: The container starts and runs a simple program that prints “Hello from Docker!”
5. Exit: The program finishes, and the container stops.

Visualization

docker run hello-world
      ↓
Pull image from Docker Hub
      ↓
Create container
      ↓
Run program

Next Lesson

➡ Managing Containers