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Deploy Existing Containers

This tutorial will show you how to deploy an existing container/multi-container application using Defang.

This is rather useful if you already have a Docker container built manually, or through a CI/CD system (where the resulting image is available in a public or private repository accessible by Defang), but it is not required in order to follow along.

Step 1 - Make a Docker Compose file​

tip

If you are unfamiliar with Docker Compose files, check out the Compose page.

Create a compose.yaml file to define the service(s) in your application.

If you already have a Docker Compose file to define your service(s), you can use it directly and skip this step.

version: '3.9'
services:
  web:
    image: nginx:latest
    ports:
      - mode: ingress
        target: 3000		
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    ports:
      - mode: ingress
        target: 4000	
  redis:
    image: redis:6.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - mode: host
        target: 6379

The example above shows a multi-container application with 3 services, web, app, redis. If you wanted to deploy only one container, say app, then the example would remain the same, except without the web and redis services.

Step 2 - Deploy​

Run the following command in the Defang CLI.

defang compose up