How-To: Run Dapr in self-hosted mode with Docker

This article provides guidance on running Dapr with Docker on a Windows/Linux/macOS machine or VM.

Docker
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Initialize Dapr environment

To initialize the Dapr control-plane containers and create a default configuration file, run:

Run both app and sidecar as a process

The dapr run CLI command can be used to launch a Dapr sidecar along with your application:

This command will launch both the daprd sidecar binary and run dotnet run, launching your application.

Alternately, if you are running Dapr in a Docker container and your app as a process on the host machine, then you need to configure Docker to use the host network so that Dapr and the app can share a localhost network interface.

Note

The host networking driver for Docker is only supported on Linux hosts.

If you are running your Docker daemon on a Linux host, you can run the following to launch Dapr:

Then you can run your app on the host and they should connect over the localhost network interface.

Run both app and Dapr in a single Docker container

It is not recommended to run both the Dapr runtime and an application inside the same container. However, it is possible to do so for local development scenarios.

In order to do this, you’ll need to write a Dockerfile that installs the Dapr runtime, Dapr CLI and your app code. You can then invoke both the Dapr runtime and your app code using the Dapr CLI.

Below is an example of a Dockerfile which achieves this:

FROM python:3.7.1
# Install dapr CLI
RUN wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dapr/cli/master/install/install.sh -O - | /bin/bash
# Install daprd
ARG DAPR_BUILD_DIR
COPY $DAPR_BUILD_DIR /opt/dapr
ENV PATH="/opt/dapr/:${PATH}"
# Install your app
WORKDIR /app
RUN pip install requests
ENTRYPOINT ["dapr"]
CMD ["run", "--app-id", "nodeapp", "--app-port", "3000", "node", "app.js"]

Remember that if Dapr needs to communicate with other components i.e. Redis, these also need to be made accessible to it.

Run on a Docker network

If you have multiple instances of Dapr running in Docker containers and want them to be able to communicate with each other i.e. for service invocation, then you’ll need to create a shared Docker network and make sure those Dapr containers are attached to it.

You can create a simple Docker network using:

When running your Docker containers, you can attach them to the network using:

docker run --net=my-dapr-network ...

Each container will receive a unique IP on that network and be able to communicate with other containers on that network.

The syntax and tooling of Docker Compose is outside the scope of this article, however, it is recommended you refer to the official Docker documentation for further details.

In order to run your applications using Dapr and Docker Compose you’ll need to define the sidecar pattern in your . For example:

To further learn how to run Dapr with Docker Compose, see the .

Run on Kubernetes

If your deployment target is Kubernetes please use Dapr’s first-class integration. Refer to the .

Name resolution

Dapr by default uses mDNS as the name resolution component in self-hosted mode for service invocation. If you are running Dapr on virtual machines or where mDNS is not available, then you can use the component for name resolution.

Dapr provides a number of prebuilt Docker images for different components, you should select the relevant image for your desired binary, architecture, and tag/version.

There are published Docker images for each of the Dapr components available on Docker Hub.

(contains all Dapr binaries)
daprio/daprd
daprio/sentry

Run with Docker