Install Docker and Apache on CentOS EC2

This walkthrough installs Docker on a CentOS EC2 instance and runs a web server inside a container.

Remove old Docker packages

If any older Docker packages are present, remove them first so they do not conflict with Docker CE:

sudo yum remove -y docker \
  docker-client \
  docker-client-latest \
  docker-common \
  docker-latest \
  docker-latest-logrotate \
  docker-logrotate \
  docker-engine

Add the Docker repository and install Docker CE

Install yum-utils, add the official Docker repo, then install Docker CE 20.10.7:

sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
sudo yum install -y docker-ce-20.10.7 docker-ce-cli-20.10.7 containerd.io

Start Docker and enable it on boot:

sudo systemctl enable --now docker
sudo systemctl status docker
sudo docker version

Pull CentOS and run a container

Pull a CentOS image and run a container named centos8, publishing host ports 8080 and 3307 for the web server and MySQL that will come later:

sudo docker pull centos
sudo docker run -itd \
  --name centos8 \
  --privileged \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -p 3307:3307 \
  centos /bin/bash

Attach a shell to the running container:

sudo docker exec -it centos8 /bin/bash

Install Apache (httpd) in the container

yum install -y httpd
httpd -v

Change the Listen directive so Apache binds on all interfaces on port 8080 (matching the published Docker port):

# /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Listen 0.0.0.0:8080

Start httpd:

httpd -k start
# or, if systemd is available in the container:
# systemctl start httpd

From a browser, try http://<ec2-public-ip>:8080/. If the page does not load yet, that is expected when the AWS security group or OS firewall still blocks 8080.

Firewall and security-group rules are still required before the site is reachable from the internet. The next post covers opening those ports and installing PHP and MySQL on this same Docker setup.