Docker Demo – User Profile App

A simple User Profile Application demonstrating how to develop and containerize a full-stack web app using Docker, Node.js, Express, and MongoDB.

This project showcases my understanding of containerized environments, service networking, and full-stack application deployment using Docker Compose.

---

Overview

This demo app consists of:

• A simple frontend built with pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• A Node.js backend using the Express framework
• A MongoDB database for storing user data
• A Mongo Express web interface for database administration

All services are fully containerized with Docker and can be managed individually or together via Docker Compose.

---

Tech Stack

Component	Technology Used
Frontend	HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Backend	Node.js (Express)
Database	MongoDB
DB Admin Tool	Mongo Express
Containerization	Docker, Docker Compose

---

Setup with Docker

To start the application

Step 1: Create docker network

docker network create mongo-network 

Step 2: start mongodb

docker run -d -p 27017:27017 -e MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=admin -e MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=password --name mongodb --net mongo-network mongo    

Step 3: start mongo-express

docker run -d -p 8081:8081 -e ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINUSERNAME=admin -e ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINPASSWORD=password --net mongo-network --name mongo-express -e ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_SERVER=mongodb mongo-express   

NOTE: creating docker-network in optional. You can start both containers in a default network. In this case, just emit --net flag in docker run command

Step 4: open mongo-express from browser

http://localhost:8081

Step 5: create user-account db and users collection in mongo-express

Step 6: Start your nodejs application locally - go to app directory of project

npm install 
node server.js

Step 7: Access you nodejs application UI from browser

http://localhost:3000

With Docker Compose

To start the application

Step 1: start mongodb and mongo-express

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml up

You can access the mongo-express under localhost:8080 from your browser

Step 2: in mongo-express UI - create a new database "my-db"

Step 3: in mongo-express UI - create a new collection "users" in the database "my-db"

Step 4: start node server

npm install
node server.js

Step 5: access the nodejs application from browser

http://localhost:3000

To build a docker image from the application

docker build -t my-app:1.0 .       

---

The dot "." at the end of the command denotes location of the Dockerfile.