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Golang Docker Container Link Example

I found many examples online wherein developers use the Go client for the Docker Engine API to start and stop containers. I couldn't find an example wherein two containers are started and networked together such that they're able to communicate. So, this is that example.

In main.go I am starting two containers, each of which is attached to a Docker user defined network. One container is running go-httpbin, which is a clone of Kenneth Reitz's httpbin service. The other container runs the curl HTTP client. curl is used to place an HTTP request to the go-httpbin container. After the request, both containers are shut down.

Running the code

You can run the code with go run main.go and you should see output like

{"status":"Pulling from curlimages/curl","id":"latest"}
{"status":"Digest: sha256:a3e534fced74aeea171c4b59082f265d66914d09a71062739e5c871ed108a46e"}
{"status":"Status: Image is up to date for curlimages/curl:latest"}
{"status":"Pulling from mccutchen/go-httpbin","id":"latest"}
{"status":"Digest: sha256:7e1cb9d38fe89c00359c5253e9841664c5b84c9df2bb0494e9c949f0e6aab46e"}
{"status":"Status: Image is up to date for mccutchen/go-httpbin:latest"}
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   179  100   179    0     0  44750      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 44750
{"args":{"foo":["bar"]},"headers":{"Accept":["*/*"],"Host":["httpbin:8080"],"User-Agent":["curl/7.74.0-DEV"]},"origin":"192.168.0.3:40894","url":"http://httpbin:8080/get?foo=bar"}

The final line is the JSON-formatted HTTP response from curl.