Windows Containers / Docker Networking: Inbound Communication

When working with Windows Containers I got a really bad headache trying to work out how to setup inbound communication to the container from external hosts.

To summerize my findings:

In order to allow inbound communication you will either need to use the '--expose'  or  '--expose' a long with  '--ports' switch - each of them do slightly different things.

'--expose': When specifying this Docker will expose (make accessible) a port that is available to other containers only. 

'--ports':  When used in conjunction with '--expose' the port will also be available to the outside world.

Note: The above switches must be specified during the creation of a container - for example:

docker run -it --cpus 2 --memory 4G -p 80:80 --expose 80 --network=<network-id> --ip=10.0.0.254 --name <container-name> -h <container-hostname> microsoft/windowsservercore cmd.exe

If your container is on a 'transparent' (bridged) network you will not be able to specify the '-p' switch and instead if you will have to open up the relevant port on the Docker host a long with the '--expose' switch in order to make the container accessible to external hosts.