Docker Compose Production Deployment Guide

Containerization is standard for modern delivery. Docker Compose simplifies multi-service orchestration but production demands extra safeguards.

Service Configuration and Resource Limits

Set reasonable CPU/memory limits per service to prevent cascading failures. Pair with healthchecks to auto-restart unhealthy containers.

version: "3.9"
services:
  web:
    build: { context: ., dockerfile: Dockerfile, target: production }
    image: registry.example.com/app:${TAG:-latest}
    restart: unless-stopped
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 40s
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits: { cpus: "2.0", memory: 2G }
        reservations: { cpus: "0.5", memory: 512M }
    logging:
      driver: json-file
      options: { max-size: "10m", max-file: "5" }
    networks: [frontend, backend]
    secrets: [db_password]
    depends_on:
      db: { condition: service_healthy }
  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    volumes: [pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U app"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
volumes: { pgdata: null }
networks: { frontend: null, backend: { internal: true } }
secrets: { db_password: { file: ./secrets/db_password.txt } }

Network and Security Isolation

Place internal services on internal networks without exposed ports. Mount credentials via secrets instead of hardcoding in images.

Best Practices

Use multi-stage builds to shrink image size, combine with .dockerignore, and regularly prune dangling images and volumes.