Deploying your ReactJS Application to a Docker container

Owned by Selvyn Wright

Aug 29, 2019

1 min read

Building the application ready for deployment

Use the npm command supplied with the create-react-app scaffold to build a production ready version of the application.

npm run build

Wait for the process to complete and observe the new folder called build that has been created. This contains everything that is needed to deploy the application.

Create a Dockerfile to configure the Docker Container

In the root folder of the project, create a new file called Dockerfile.
Add the following code to the Dockerfile:

FROM nginx:alpine
COPY /build /usr/share/nginx/html
EXPOSE 80
CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

Save the file

Build the Docker Image

Point the command line at the folder that contains your Dockerfile - this should be the root folder of your project.
Build a local image replacing <image_name> with your name for the image using the command:

docker build . -t <image_name>

Wait for the process to finish.

Running an Instance of the Image

Run the container locally using the command:

Wait for the process to finish.

Viewing Your Application

Open a browser and point it to http://<container IP>