Docker friendly Alpine Linux gets hardened Node.js

Tiny containers means more compute resources left over for actual… computing! Alpine Linux is particularly tiny. It says so, right on the tin: “Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based.”

Do you like saving money? I like saving money. Better resource utilization means happy bank accounts.

Let’s take a closer look at Alpine Linux on Docker. Heck, while we’re at it let’s build our own image.

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Create a Dockerfile in your Node.js app project
# specify the node base image with your desired version node:
FROM node:6
# replace this with your application's default port
EXPOSE 8888

Two different download channels are available for Docker for Mac:

The Stable channel provides a general availability release-ready installer for a fully baked and tested, more reliable app. The Stable version of Docker for Mac comes with the latest released version of Docker Engine. The release schedule is synched with Docker Engine releases and hotfixes. On the Stable channel, you can select whether to send usage statistics and other data.

The Edge channel provides an installer with new features we are working on, but is not necessarily fully tested. It comes with the experimental version of Docker Engine. Bugs, crashes, and issues are more likely to occur with the Edge app, but you get a chance to preview new functionality, experiment, and provide feedback as the apps evolve. Releases are typically more frequent than for Stable, often one or more per month. Usage statistics and crash reports are sent by default. You do not have the option to disable this on the Edge channel.

You need a Mac that supports hardware virtualization and can run at least macOS 10.11 (macOS El Capitan). See also What to know before you install in the install guide.