Migrating my Sites into Docker Containers

I’ve been tinkering with Docker ever since setting up my new Pi server after Gemini rightly suggested using Docker containers to isolate my various WordPress instances, databases, and other gumpf.

I’m not 100% sure how everything works, but the results have been impressive. I’m running multiple additional applications on my server and still using less RAM than before. I set almost everything up through the command line interface (mainly because I’m running a headless operating system for efficiency) so it wasn’t all that different than what Gemini was walking me through before. Now, instead of running a LAMP stack and cramming several sites into what would have effectively been a shared hosting environment, I now have a bunch of ‘containers’ that all work independently, meaning I can more easily spin up new sites and services without potentially impacting my existing sites. Or something like that.

It’s been an interesting learning journey with AI. Initially, I thought I’d be blindly following instructions and coming out the other end with working sites and absolutely no idea what anything does and if any of it was secure and stable. However, I’ve learnt a lot, become relatively fluent in the process, and now understand a fair bit of the core functionality. I’m incapable of writing the commands off the top of my head mind you, but at least I understand what everything does. Plus I’ve been able to get rid of some wiggly WordPress site health issues around object caching, thanks to Redis, so with each new project, my sites all benefit from a little more clever web technology.

It’s also refreshing to be able to work in containers, knowing that if a make a mess through installing, removing, and replacing services, I can simply start over with a fresh container and not have lots of legacy files, dependencies, and settings littering the server. It makes it more fun thinking up new ways to take advantage of the Pi Server, knowing that I can easily spin up a new project in a container with the confidence that my core sites will still run smoothly in the background, oblivious to whatever hair-brained project I’m working on in the background.

So far, so good. Hopefully, this information sticks in my head long term, but I’m not holding out much hope. I’ve purposely not installed any form of graphical interface for the server specifically to become more comfortable with the command line and better understand what’s actually going on under the hood. I don’t do this work a living, so it’s not going to become second nature to me, but at least it’s another string to my bow with regards to understanding the fundamentals and no longer staring at a blog post tutorial full of command line instructions like a rabbit in headlights.