I'll have to look more closely at your questions when I have more time, but as a starting point I've got an in-progress (but largely working) Docker version of foundation-mvc-cms here: https://github.com/daniel-isaacs/foundation-mvc-cms/tree/net5-docker

I started from the blog post you linked, but made a few changes. It also includes an nginx reverse proxy in front.

Notes/short version of what’s going on via the Docker setup, roughly broken out by what each file’s doing:

• .env
  • Defines some variables for the setup, used by the other files
• docker-compose.yml
  • We’re bringing up three separate containers, one for the site (foundation-web), one for the database (foundation-db), one for nginx (foundation-nginx) – this sets some properties for bringing them up.
• docker/Sql.Dockerfile
  • This defines how the database container should be built. There isn’t much to this one, except that it includes running a script (docker/build-script/SetupDatabases.sh) that creates the DB and users – that script is part of the original setup.cmd, rewritten in bash.
• docker/Web.Dockerfile
  • This defines how the web container should be built – it covers a bunch of the other stuff from the setup.cmd, including:
    • Restoring the nuget packages
    • Running the npm build scripts
    • Building the web app (dotnet build…)
    • Publishing the web app (dotnet publish….)
  • It finishes by running a script (docker/build-script/wait_sqlserver_start_and_attachdb.sh) that waits for the database to come up (hardcoded 2 minute wait), and then launches the web app.

In theory, the steps to bring it up should be:

1. Clone the repo:
   git clone https://github.com/daniel-isaacs/foundation-mvc-cms.git
2. Change to the correct branch:
   git checkout net5-docker
3. In Powershell or WSL (I’ve been using Ubuntu for my testing), go to /src/Foundation and build the Docker image (it may take a little while):
   docker-compose build
4. Once it’s built, start the containers:
   docker-compose up -d
5. It’ll take at least 2 minutes for it to come up (there’s a 2 minute delay built in so the DB has time to do its thing). To check if it should be ready, run the following command – if it’s ready, it should output the connection string and the port (and if it’s not ready yet, the output should just be blank):
   docker logs foundation-web
6. Once it’s ready, try to load the site: http://localhost:4000
7. When you’re done, you can spin it down with:
   docker-compose stop

 Once it's up, login is admin@example.com / Episerver123!

Thank you so much for this thourough response! I have now gotten it to work on Docker, and my current challenge is getting the "translation" from docker-compose to a Kubernetes deployment, service, and pvc. If you have any experience on that matter I would love to hear it!

Glad that first step is working!

I haven't been able to work on the Kubernetes side of things, but here is a blog post on how to set up the Optimizely CMS sample site using Kubernetes -- I haven't tried it, but it may be helpful for applying to the foundation site as well: https://dev.to/stoffe/optimizely-on-kubernetes-4k9n