Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition

by Elton Stoneman

Just the Docker you need to know in 22 bite-sized lessons! In Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Docker expert Elton Stoneman guides through everything you need to know about Docker in 22 short lessons you can complete on your lunch break. This freshly-revised bestseller has been updated for modern tools and the latest versions of Linux, Windows, or Mac, with new coverage of multi-platform builds, cloud container services, replatforming legacy Windows apps, and Kubernetes. In Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition you’ll learn how • Run applications in Docker containers on Linux and Windows • Package applications as Docker images and share them on registries • Model and run distributed applications with Docker Compose and Kubernetes • Add instrumentation to containerized applications • Build and deploy apps with Docker in a CI/CD process Docker revolutionized the way engineers build software. By bundling an application together with all its dependencies in a portable “container” that can be deployed almost anywhere, Docker makes it possible to manage applications without creating custom infrastructures. Free, open source, and battle-tested, Docker has quickly become must-know technology for developers and administrators. About the Technology Docker is a set of powerful tools to bundle software components in safe, portable “containers” you can drop wherever they’re needed. Whether you’re deploying a pre-built application, creating a secure test environment, or packaging microservices, you’re probably going to use Docker. This book gets you up to speed with the Docker skills you need—without the history, theory, and other “blah blah” you don’t. About the Book Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition teaches you the most important Docker techniques in just 22 short hands-on lessons. Each chapter guides you through an essential concept, complete with a self-contained lab to practice your new skill. You’ll explore building Docker apps, adding observability, running databases in containers, safely migrating legacy systems, and more. There’s even a primer on using Kubernetes to manage your containers! What’s Inside • 22 short lessons and labs you can complete in an hour or less • Cloud migration, microservices, and handling legacy systems • All examples work on Linux, Windows, and macOS About the Readers Developers, administrators, and DevOps all welcome! About the Author Elton Stoneman is a Docker Captain, a multiyear Microsoft MVP, and author of dozens of online training courses with Pluralsight and Udemy. Table of Contents PART 1 1 Before you begin 2 Understanding Docker and running Hello World 3 Building your own Docker images 4 Packaging applications from source code into Docker images 5 Sharing images with Docker Hub and other registries 6 Using Docker volumes for persistent storage PART 2 7 Running multi-container apps with Docker Compose 8 Supporting reliability with health checks and dependency checks 9 Adding observability with containerized monitoring 10 Running multiple environments with Docker Compose 11 Building and testing applications with Docker and Docker Compose PART 12 Running containers on different platforms 13 Replatforming the Packaging and running Windows apps in Docker 14 Containers in the cloud with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud 15 A primer 16 CI/CD in the cloud with Docker and GitHub Actions PART 4 17 Optimizing your Docker images for size, speed, and security 18 Application configuration management in containers 19 Writing and managing application logs with Docker 20 Controlling HTTP traffic to containers with a reverse proxy 21 Asynchronous communication with a message queue 22 Never the end

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Technology, Computers, Technical

788 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 30, 2025

Reviews

[Peter Augustinak · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book lies in one thing - you have no chance to get through single chapter during your average lunch - only if you are allowed to have really long lunch breaks. For me it took usually 1,5 - 2,5 hours to finish the chapter with trying all the exercises - and that with not always trying to resolve lab exams.

Other than that I consider it as a really great source to start with Dockers. I went literally from "zero" to quite good general understanding of the technology. I was even able along the way to introduce some of the hacks described directly into the projects in my work! I need to continue to study further, but I'm really happy to kick this off with this one.

PS: One other confession - I was not able to run CI examples no matter how hard I have tried. Jenkins just didn't want to cooperate.

[Yura Gavrilovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book retells official docker documentation in parallel with practical exercises. Exercises are quite good and sometimes interesting to follow. But at the end of the day you'll still go to the documentation in order to find out some subtle questions.

[Sam B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction book to Docker on how and where to use it. The book started off very simple and is easy to follow at the beginning. The later chapters do go into more specific aspects such as logging, reverse proxy, configurations, etc. However, it never goes fully in-depth with any of the underlying technology but does explain the depth of knowledge needed for most engineers (this is explained in the preface). Depending on how involved you want to get, getting through one chapter will almost certainly take longer than a lunch period, especially with labs at the end of the chapters. It’s possible to simply read through the chapter if you have a time constraint.

+ all instructions are laid out and exact (for both Linux and Windows)
+ all outputs are screen-captured and explained so that you don’t need to read this book with a computer (although it certainly helps typing out the commands and seeing the results)
+ I haven't tried all the exercises, but of those that I've tried, all of them work out of the box.

- docker CLI outputs slightly different (this is to be expected with version upgrades)
- container suffix different (numbers-test-_numbers-api_1 vs numbers-test-numbers-api-1)

I would recommend this to people trying to learn the basics of Docker, especially to those who tried reading the Docker docs and found them too daunting. That being said, this is more devops-focused. I wish there was a little more emphasis and chapters dedicated to working with docker as a developer, such as creating an environment with volume and docker-compose (compiled and interpretative languages) and a developer life-cycle with containers and images.

[Alex Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that covers docker from beginner to fairly advanced. I like the "Month of Lunches" format and the author starts off pretty simple for the first week (I skimmed a lot of the early chapters because it was very introductory), but by the later chapters gets into some good content that a lot of other books don't get into. I was impressed with the breadth. If you wanted to focus on a certain part of Docker, then there are specialized books out there to go deeper, but I think 98% of engineers can get all they need to know out of Docker from this book. Those of us who are SREs or manage huge amounts of microservices might need to go a tiny bit deeper, but for most people this is everything you need to know, all packaged up in a month of lunch breaks. Really enjoyed it.

[Roman Kunin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best technical books I have come across to. Very well written. It is divided into 22 small chapters with labs at the end of each. After three or four chapters you can already begin to use Docker at your work and benefit from it. Each chapter is practical. You learn Docker on the way of building something.

Like in real software development there are many technologies at play. The book shows you how you can use Docker to do many things. You build a CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins. You set up an API gateway to connect frontend to many containers. You use message brokers to make your applications communicate with each other. And other things.

[Tom Coudyzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The approach of the book is amazing. I can confirm you can digest it as the book states. Off course you can replace lunches with dinner, breakfast ;-)

This book has a pratical approach which makes it immediately usable in the field. It always uses pratical examples/challenge you may encounter.

The author excelled in creating a book which tick the boxes in a lot of areas without creating a 1000-pager book.

Absolutely recommended.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of the three books I have read on Docker, Docker Build Ship and Run, Mastering Docker, and this one. Docker in a Month of Luches is the best one for beginners.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very helpful book for Docker, especially when you try to run Docker on Windows with Windows containers. While not specially advertised for this scenario, I found solutions to many of my problems in this book. I can fully recommend this book for everyone who has done the tutorials and now needs to figure out the more realistic challenges.

[மகிழ்நன் · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-structured and practical guide to mastering Docker. Each chapter is short, focused, and hands-on — perfect for anyone balancing learning with work. The second edition is well-aligned with today’s Docker ecosystem, covering multi-stage builds, Compose v2, registry usage, and container security.

I liked how the author explains not just how to use Docker, but why things work the way they do — from image layers to networking. The examples are production-relevant and help build real confidence in using Docker for development and deployment.

If you’re a developer, DevOps engineer, or architect looking to strengthen your containerization fundamentals, this book is a solid pick. It’s practical, technically sound, and easy to follow.

A great read for anyone serious about learning Docker the right way.

[Ron Hübler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is the definitve introduction to docker and its eco system. It was a well structured and well thought out book. The book had lots of examples and information on how docker works under hood. Agter I gave it a read I was able to solve all my docker related tasks. I highly recommend to give this book a shot if you are interested in Docker.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition delivers exactly what it promises: a well-structured and accessible guide for anyone looking to learn Docker in a practical, step-by-step way.
Each chapter covers a key concept with clear explanations and real-world examples.

[João · Rating 3 out of 5]

Relatively good so far. In general good, found some parts confusing, and had some minor issues regarding windows x linux that had to be adjusted to run the examples in latest docker (on windows).