9.2: Graphical Interface: Discover Portainer to see everything at a glance

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📚Docker for beginners: The Shipyard
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So far, we’ve been using the terminal to manage our containers. But if you want to see your entire container “fleet” at a glance, there are graphical interfaces like Portainer.

Portainer is a web application that lets you:

  • View your containers, images, and volumes.
  • Start, stop, or delete containers.
  • Access logs and the inspector without typing any commands.

Basically: everything we’ve learned in the terminal is available here, but in a visual format.

Quick Deployment of Portainer

For beginners, the easiest way is to launch Portainer as a container:

docker volume create portainer_datadocker run -d -p 9000:9000 \
    --name portainer \
    --restart=always \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v portainer_data:/data \
    portainer/portainer-ce
  • After a few seconds, go tohttp://localhost:9000 (or your server’s IP address).
  • Follow the wizard to create an admin account and access your Docker.

Note: Portainer can manage multiple hostsDockerif you configure endpoints.

Alternatives to Portainer

There are other tools for managingDocker graphically, for example:

  • Dockhand: a lighter interface, geared toward beginners and small deployments.
  • Other professional solutions like Rancher or CockpitDocker for more complex environments.

The main point here is to show that you don’t have to do everything via the CLI, especially when it comes to quickly visualizing and troubleshooting your containers.