How Should I Get Application Configuration into my Docker Containers?

Question

I read the following article about "How Should I Get Application Configuration into my Docker Containers?" https://dantehranian.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/how-should-i-get-application-configuration-into-my-docker-containers/

It summarizes 4 options for this that were relevant back in 2015. In short:

1. Baking the Configuration into the Container

2. Setting the Application Configuration Dynamically via Environment Variables

3. Setting the Application Configuration Dynamically via Environment Variables (using an external kv store)

4. Map the Config Files in Directly via Docker Volumes

I'm wondering if nowadays these options are still the only ones viable or are there any new options/patterns to do this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Eventhough this article was written in 2015, the configuration options stated for containers are still the same.

On the container level, options 1,2 and 4 are the only available options without using any external services.

For option 3, there are many key stores and services that can be used. But the idea is basically the same: Query a "service" and fetch the configuration during startup or runtime.