Practical Docker and Kubernetes Bootcamp 2026
Live Sessions at 5 PM IST
Start Date is 3rd January 2026
Saturday and Sunday Sessions for 3 Hours Each
WEEKEND 1 — DOCKER FOUNDATIONS AND CORE PRACTICALS
SESSION 1 — Docker Fundamentals and Basic Application Deployment
Topics
- What is a container
- VM vs container
- Docker Engine architecture
- Installing Docker
- Basic commands: pull, run, ps, stop, rm, logs, exec, images, rmi
- Running NGINX / Python / Node containers
- Debugging containers
Troubleshooting
- Container not starting
- Port conflicts
- Image pull errors
SESSION 2 — Docker Images, Dockerfile, Volumes, Networking and CI/CD
Docker Topics
- Dockerfile instructions: FROM, RUN, COPY, WORKDIR, EXPOSE, CMD, ENTRYPOINT
- Building custom images
- Image optimization and multi-stage builds
- Tagging and pushing to Docker Hub
- .dockerignore
- Volumes: named volumes and bind mounts
- Real-world volume usage (MySQL persistence, NGINX bind mount)
- Docker networks: bridge, host, none
- Custom networks and multi-container communication
- Reverse proxy basics
- Resource limits
- Cleaning unused images and containers
CI/CD
- What CI/CD means
- Typical stages: build → test → scan → Docker build → push → deploy
- Overview of Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
- How CI/CD interacts with Docker and Kubernetes
Troubleshooting
- Volume not attaching
- Containers unable to reach each other
- Reverse proxy routing issues
WEEKEND 2 — KUBERNETES CORE AND INTERMEDIATE TOPICS
SESSION 3 — Kubernetes Architecture, Kubectl, Pods, Labels and Selectors
Topics
- Why Kubernetes is needed
- Master and worker components
- API server, controller manager, scheduler, kubelet, kube-proxy, etcd
- kubeconfig and namespaces
- Kubectl commands: get, describe, apply, delete, logs, exec, port-forward
- Pods, pod YAML structure, pod lifecycle
- Multi-container pods and initContainers
- Labels and selectors in pods, services, deployments
Troubleshooting
- CrashLoopBackOff
- ImagePullBackOff
- Selector mismatch issues
SESSION 4 — ReplicaSets, Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, Storage and Helm
Main Kubernetes Topics
- ReplicaSets and desired state
- Deployments: rolling updates, rollbacks, revision history
- Services: ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer
- DNS and service discovery
- ConfigMaps and Secrets (env and volume-based)
- Storage: emptyDir, hostPath, PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims
- StorageClasses and dynamic provisioning
Helm
- What Helm is and why it is used
- Charts, templates and values files
- How Helm simplifies deployments
- Differences between Helm and kubectl apply
- Example of a Helm-based install
Troubleshooting
- PVC stuck in Pending
- DNS/service routing problems
- ConfigMap/Secret misconfigurations
WEEKEND 3 — ADVANCED KUBERNETES, NETWORKING, SECURITY AND MONITORING
SESSION 5 — Ingress, Probes, Resource Management, Scheduling, Taints and Tolerations
Topics
- Ingress basics
- Path-based and host-based routing
- NGINX Ingress Controller
- Probes: liveness, readiness, startup
- Resource requests and limits, QoS classes, OOMKilled
- Scheduling: nodeSelector, affinity, anti-affinity
- Pod affinity and anti-affinity
- Taints and tolerations
Troubleshooting
- 404 and 503 errors
- Probes causing restarts
- Pods not scheduling on any node
- Taints preventing workload placement
SESSION 6 — RBAC, Network Policies, Autoscaling, Logging and Prometheus/Grafana + Final Troubleshooting Lab
Main Kubernetes Topics
- RBAC: service accounts, roles, rolebindings, clusterroles
- Network policies: allow/deny traffic
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler using CPU metrics
- Vertical Pod Autoscaler (concept)
- Basic Kubernetes logging: kubectl logs, node logs, sidecar logging pattern
Prometheus/Grafana
- Why monitoring is required
- What Prometheus does (metrics collection, pull model, exporters)
- What Grafana does (dashboards and visualization)
- High-level idea of PromQL and alerts
- How clusters are monitored in production environments
Final Troubleshooting Lab
- Pod Pending
- Node NotReady
- DNS failures
- ImagePullBackOff
- OOMKilled
- Ingress routing issues
- NetworkPolicy blocking traffic
- Storage attach failures