46 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
46 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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reviewers:
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- erictune
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- thockin
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title: Containers overview
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content_template: templates/concept
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weight: 1
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---
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{{% capture overview %}}
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Containers are a technology for packaging the (compiled) code for an
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application along with the dependencies it needs at run time. Each
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container that you run is repeatable; the standardization from having
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dependencies included means that you get the same behavior wherever you
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run it.
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Containers decouple applications from underlying host infrastructure.
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This makes deployment easier in different cloud or OS environments.
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{{% /capture %}}
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{{% capture body %}}
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## Container images
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A [container image](/docs/concepts/containers/images/) is a ready-to-run
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software package, containing everything needed to run an application:
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the code and any runtime it requires, application and system libraries,
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and default values for any essential settings.
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By design, a container is immutable: you cannot change the code of a
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container that is already running. If you have a containerized application
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and want to make changes, you need to build a new container that includes
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the change, then recreate the container to start from the updated image.
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## Container runtimes
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{{< glossary_definition term_id="container-runtime" length="all" >}}
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* Read about [container images](/docs/concepts/containers/images/)
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* Read about [Pods](/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/)
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{{% /capture %}}
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