How  to administer Docker containers from your browser
Credit: Linux Format Magazine LXF290

How to administer Docker containers from your browser

# Docker is great, but using it from the command line can be tricky, on the other hand, you can use Docker Desktop, but when you don't like Docker Desktop or you're using in a server with no desktop, you need an alternative.

That alternative is Portainer (www.portainer.io) it is a web-based frontend you can use to administer your Docker containers from any PC on your local network.

Quick Start

Portainer ships as a Docker instance, (it can be run as part of a Docker Swarm or in Kubernetes) but for this quick start, I'll focus on running it with a local instance of Docker.

First, you must have a Docker instance installed on your machine (see https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/).

To install Portainer you should first, create the volume that Portainer Server will use to store its database, you should run this command on your terminal:

docker volume create portainer_data        

Then, download and install the Portainer Server container:

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -p 9443:9443 --name portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest        

That is all, now you're using Portainer.

(You can see more detailed info about the installation in Portainer docs here: https://docs.portainer.io/start/install/server/docker/linux)

Note the instruction in Portainer docs says 'Linux' but it works well on Mac.

Using Portainer

You can check that your Portainer container is running with `docker ps`.

Now you can access it from your web browser via `https://localhost:9443` by default, Portainer generates and uses a self-signed SSL certificate to secure port 9443, so you'll see a security risk warning appear, you can dismiss it and continue.

The Portainer SignUp form will show up, you should set a password up, and is recommended change the username from admin for security reasons, the next screen asks you to connect to other environments or connect with your local instance.

Enjoy!!

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