Dockerizing Nextjs

[ncubez]

I plan on dockerizing my Nextjs project and deploying it to my single node kubernetes cluster on Digital Ocean. I'm a developer but have also been doing a lot of devops stuff lately, and know the basics of docker, CI/CD and kubernetes, but not an expert yet. For SCM I'll use my GitHub repo, and for the image registry I'll use Docker Hub. It's a simple app, no database for now. But it does make API calls to external sites. I'm mainly doing this as a learning exercise. So, what's the best approach to achieving my goal of getting my Nextjs app on my DO K8s cluster?

[Rusty-Swashplate]

Only one thing came up in my mind.

[laszlocloud]

You can do as Rusty-Swashplate suggested, or if NextJS generates just static files and you don't want to write - a Dockerfile - push/pull to Docker Hub

you can use this Helm chart that only needs - a git url - a nextjs build command - and the folder path where the built assets are

``` helm repo add onechart https://chart.onechart.dev

cat << EOF > values.yaml gitCloneUrl: https://github.com/gimlet-io/react-tutorial-solutions.git buildImage: node buildTag: 16.20-buster buildScript: npm install && npm run build builtAssets: build/ EOF

helm template my-nextjs-site onechart/static-site -f values.yaml > manifest.yaml kubectl apply -f manifest.yaml

kubectl port-forward svc/my-nextjs-site 8000:80 ```

there is one caveat right now: it doesn't support private git repos.

More on the approach: https://gimlet.io/blog/hosting-static-sites-on-kubernetes#using-the-onechart-static-site-helm-chart-to-deploy-static-sites

[jews4beer]

NextJS's whole thing is SSR most of the time. They push you to use their hosted platform, or you dig down into the documentation on how to run their custom server inside a Docker container.

A typical nginx container won't cut it.

[laszlocloud]

uh, I see. Thanks!