Creating a Docker Image for a Go Server

This lesson shows how to create a Docker image for a Go application. The main benefit we get from this is that we can deploy it in a Docker environment without worrying about compiling it and having the required resources—everything is included in the Docker image.

Still, we might ask, “Why not use a normal Go binary instead of a Docker image?” The answer is simple: Docker images can be put in docker-compose.yml files and can be deployed using Kubernetes. The same is not true about Go binaries.

We usually start with a base Docker image that already includes Go, and we create the desired binary in there. The key point here is that samplePro.go uses an external package that should be downloaded in the Docker image before building the executable binary.

Dockerfile

The process must start with go mod init and go mod tidy. The contents of the Dockerfile (dFilev2) are as follows: