Create a Dockerfile for a CMS application

4 min

Containerize an Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) 13 application so it deploys consistently across Linux and Windows hosts. This article walks through the Dockerfile, the .dockerignore file, and the commands to build and run the image.

Before you begin

Docker Desktop installed on your machine.

A buildable CMS 13 ASP.NET Core application. The project in this example is episerversample. See Install a sample site.

A chosen container mode (Linux or Windows) in Docker Desktop.

If you are new to ASP.NET, follow the ASP.NET Get Started tutorial to initialize a project, or clone the ASP.NET Docker Sample.

Create a Dockerfile for the application

Create a Dockerfile in your project folder.

Add the following content to your Dockerfile for Linux or Windows containers. The tags are multi-arch: they pull Windows or Linux containers depending on the mode set in Docker Desktop for Windows. See Switch between Windows and Linux containers.

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:10.0 AS build-env
WORKDIR /app

COPY *.csproj ./
RUN dotnet restore

COPY . ./
RUN dotnet publish -c Release -o out

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet:10.0
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build-env /app/out .

EXPOSE 80

ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "episerversample.dll"]

The Dockerfile assumes the application is episerversample. Change the ENTRYPOINT line to reference the DLL of your project.

To minimize the build context, add a .dockerignore file to your project folder with the following contents:

bin/
obj/

Build and run the Docker image

Open a command prompt and go to your project folder.

Build the Docker image:

docker build -t episerversample .

Run the Docker image:

docker run -it -e "Urls=http://+:80" -p 8080:80 episerversample