All posts tagged: Docker

Portainer turned my chaotic Docker setup into something I could actually see

Portainer turned my chaotic Docker setup into something I could actually see

Published by skeptic

If you’re still accessing your home Docker setup through the terminal, are you even evolving? My containers were running, services were responding, and my server wasn’t throwing any obvious errors. On paper, everything looked fine. In reality, it felt like I was babysitting a system that only behaved because I kept poking it with the right commands at the right time. Not fragile enough to panic. Not smooth enough to trust. That awkward middle ground where things work … until they very suddenly don’t. Managing everything through the terminal had quietly turned into a ritual. SSH in, run docker ps, squint at container names. I definitely chose in a moment of overconfidence, open logs, miss something, open more logs, question my life choices, and repeat. It worked, but it wasn’t clean. It wasn’t fast. And it definitely wasn’t something I enjoyed. Installing Portainer didn’t magically make Docker better. It just removed the layer of friction I had gotten so used to that I stopped noticing it was there. Related I access my home server from …

Docker isn’t just for developers — I’m a regular user and it changed how I run apps

Docker isn’t just for developers — I’m a regular user and it changed how I run apps

Published by skeptic

Docker had been sitting in my mental “not for me” folder for years. Right next to Kubernetes, enterprise dashboards, and anything that sounds like it requires a Slack channel just to exist. It had that aura. Containers, images, orchestration. Words that don’t just suggest complexity, they announce it. So I ignored it. Until I got tired of my system doing that subtle Linux thing where nothing is technically broken, but something is definitely off. I saw apps stepping on each other, and felt dependencies shifting under my feet. That creeping feeling that installing one more thing might be the thing that finally makes everything weird. Docker didn’t fix Linux. It just removed most of the reasons I was side-eyeing it. Since I’ve already written a few Docker articles and gotten one joint comment from you guys, here’s what Docker is! Docker sounds complicated, but it really isn’t It’s just apps in isolated boxes that don’t touch your system Afam Onyimadu / MUO Here’s Docker without the TED Talk. A container is just an app packaged …

I canceled four subscriptions after setting up this one Docker container on a mini PC

I canceled four subscriptions after setting up this one Docker container on a mini PC

Published by skeptic

There’s a very specific kind of financial delusion that comes with modern software. “It’s just $2.99 a month.” You say it casually, repeatedly, and about five different apps. Cloud storage, password manager, notes, and something for documents you swear you’ll organize someday. Maybe a photo backup service running in the background. None of it feels expensive. Until you zoom out and realize you’re essentially paying a monthly subscription … to access your own digital life. I promise, I wasn’t trying to fix that. I wasn’t auditing my spending or going full “self-host everything” mode. I just had a small PC sitting there, underused, and judging me loudly. And I had that one dangerous thought that always leads somewhere: this could probably run something useful. So I fired up Docker. Not as a lifestyle change or as a long-term plan. Just to see what would happen. This was supposed to be one simple container It turned into a full stack Screenshot: Roine Bertelson/MUO The original plan was refreshingly simple: install one container, learn something, shut it …

I stripped out my router’s built-in features and rebuilt them with Docker

I stripped out my router’s built-in features and rebuilt them with Docker

Published by skeptic

Modern routers love to brag about ad blocking, smart DNS, traffic control, security layers, AI-this, and cloud-that. If I give it another firmware update, it’ll probably start offering life-coaching services. And for a while, I bought into all that. I let my router run most of my home network like some overconfident middle manager who just discovered dashboards. It “optimized traffic.” It “protected devices.” It made decisions I never explicitly asked for. It also randomly broke things: websites timing out for no reason, DNS slowing down like it needed a vape break, and devices behaving differently depending on what corner of the crib they were in, as if my Wi-Fi suddenly developed moods. Every time I opened the settings, everything looked fine. Because, of course, it did. That’s when I realized something slightly awkward. I had no idea what my own network was actually doing. So I did the only reasonable thing and turned all of it off. I stopped trusting my router When “it just works” slowly stops working Pankil Shah/MakeUseOf Credit: Pankil Shah/MakeUseOf It didn’t …

The wild six weeks for NanoClaw’s creator that led to a deal with Docker

The wild six weeks for NanoClaw’s creator that led to a deal with Docker

Published by skeptic

It’s been a whirlwind for NanoClaw creator Gavriel Cohen.  About six weeks ago, he introduced NanoClaw on Hacker News as a tiny, open source, secure alternative to the AI agent-building sensation OpenClaw, after he built it in a weekend coding binge. That post went viral.   “I sat down on the couch in my sweatpants,” Cohen told TechCrunch, “and just basically melted into [it] the whole weekend, probably almost 48 hours straight.”   About three weeks ago, an X post praising NanoClaw from famed AI researcher Andrej Karpathy went viral.   About a week ago, Cohen closed down his AI marketing startup to focus full-time on NanoClaw and launch a company around it called NanoCo. The attention from Hacker News and Karpathy had translated into 22,000 stars on GitHub, 4,600 forks (people building new versions off the project), and over 50 contributors. He’s already added hundreds of updates to his project with hundreds more in the queue.  Now, on Friday, Cohen announced a deal with Docker — the company that essentially invented the container technology NanoClaw is built …

NanoClaw and Docker partner to make sandboxes the safest way for enterprises to deploy AI agents

NanoClaw and Docker partner to make sandboxes the safest way for enterprises to deploy AI agents

Published by skeptic

NanoClaw, the open-source AI agent platform created by Gavriel Cohen, is partnering with the containerized development platform Docker to let teams run agents inside Docker Sandboxes, a move aimed at one of the biggest obstacles to enterprise adoption: how to give agents room to act without giving them room to damage the systems around them. The announcement matters because the market for AI agents is shifting from novelty to deployment. It is no longer enough for an agent to write code, answer questions or automate a task. For CIOs, CTOs and platform leaders, the harder question is whether that agent can safely connect to live data, modify files, install packages and operate across business systems without exposing the host machine, adjacent workloads or other agents. That is the problem NanoClaw and Docker say they are solving together. Lazer Cohen and Gavriel Cohen, co-founders of NanoClaw.dev. Credit: NanoClaw.dev A security argument, not just a packaging update NanoClaw launched as a security-first alternative in the rapidly growing “claw” ecosystem, where agent frameworks promise broad autonomy across local …

I shrunk my Docker images by over 50% with this one free tool

I shrunk my Docker images by over 50% with this one free tool

Published by skeptic

One of my biggest frustrations with Docker images is how large they can get. Despite how I try to carefully structure my Dockerfiles and specific commands I use to manage Docker, I’m still at their mercy. Aside from the wasted disk space, builds take forever, and I spend a lot of time tracking down unnecessary dependencies. I accepted this as unavoidable until I tried SlimToolKit. Initially, I was skeptical because its promise sounded too good to be true. It would shrink my containers dramatically but not touch my Dockerfiles or mess with my workflow. However, what followed after I used the tool was an eye-opening discovery. I saw immediate wins and learned certain lessons in container optimization. Docker image bloat The invisible weight your containers carry Afam Onyimadu / MUO I had just set up a new Linux Mint installation and, to test a few tools, I installed Docker and a few servers. Within just two days, I checked my container sizes and was shocked at how large they were for a simple test. Nextcloud …

This gorgeous terminal UI changed how I use Docker on Linux

This gorgeous terminal UI changed how I use Docker on Linux

Published by skeptic

I love Docker. It is a very robust piece of software, but it also tends to get messy pretty quickly. After your second running container, the experience may start to break down, and you find yourself jumping between docker ps, logs, stats, and Compose commands. In the end, you may be spending too much time checking state rather than actually using your tools. Lazydocker is the tool that fixed Docker for me. While it doesn’t replace Docker or hide how it works, it provides visibility into containers, services, logs, and resources in a single terminal UI. I only recently started using it, but I don’t see myself going back to raw Docker commands. OS Linux Price model Free Lazydocker is a lightweight, open-source terminal for managing Docker and Docker Compose environments. It allows you to monitor and interact with containers, images, volumes, and networks. From commands to context: seeing Docker as a system Why a visual terminal UI changes how you reason about containers If you’ve used Docker for a while, you should know that …