Introduction

This hands-on workshop introduces Docker as a tool for creating reproducible and portable computational environments. Participants will learn how to build, manage, and share containerised applications, with a focus on practical workflows relevant to research computing. The sessions will cover core Docker concepts, working with images and containers, writing Docker files, managing data within containers, and best practices for reproducibility. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to create and run their own Docker containers for research workflows.

This workshop is primarily aimed at using Docker on your own laptop, though the skills covered are applicable to cloud and HPC environments as well.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this workshop, you will know how to:

• Understand what Docker containers are, why they are useful, and the common terminology used
• Have a working Docker installation on your local system
• Know how to use existing Docker containers for common tasks
• Be able to build your own Docker containers using a Dockerfile
• Understand how to manage Docker containers on your local system
• Appreciate reproducibility challenges in software and how containers can address them

Credits and Acknowledgement

These content were adapted from the following course materials:

• The Carpentries Incubator - Reproducible Computational Environments Using Containers: Introduction to Docker

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