Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: Docker containers (feddit.org)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I can't seem to wrap my head around (Docker) containers and especially their maintenance.
As I understand it, containers contain a stripped-down OS that shares some resources with the host?
Or is it more like a closed-off part of the file system?

Anyway, when I have several containers running on a host system,
Do I need to keep them all updated separately? If so, how?
Or is it enough to update the host system, and not worry about the containers?

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[–] Alk 8 points 1 week ago

To elaborate on this, when you want an update, you "update the container." This usually means downloading an entirely new container image and replacing yours with the new one, which has new internal versions and data but works the exact same. You rely on the supplier of the container (if you didn't make it yourself) to do all of that for you, and you just receive the update when you request it.

So ideally, dependencies will be taken care of for you when the container updates, if you are using a pre-built container.