Run the official RethinkDB Docker container:
$ docker run --name rethinkdb -d rethinkdb
The name rethinkdb in the name assignment --name rethinkdb is important. It's used by subsequent containers to get RethinkDB's host address and port numbers.
Build the initializer image from the Dockerfile provided:
$ docker build --tag=tinode-init-db init-rethinkdb
Run the container to initialize the tinode database:
$ docker run --rm --name tinode-init --link rethinkdb tinode-init-db
Optionally you may want to provide a UID encryption key as --env SNOWFLAKE_UID_KEY=base64+encoded+16+bytes=. The system uses snowflake to generate unique IDs for values like user IDs. To make them unpredictable it encrypts them with XTEA. If you don't provide the key the system will use a default one. As a result the IDs will be easily predictable (but still not sequential).
At this point the database is initialized and loaded with test data. No need to do this again unless you need to resent the data or delete/recreated the RethinkDB container.
Build the Tinode server image from the Dockerfile:
$ docker build --tag=tinode-srv tinode-server
Run Tinode server:
$ docker run -p 6060:18080 -d --name tinode-srv --link rethinkdb tinode-srv
The port mapping -p 6060:18080 tells Docker to map container's port 18080 to host's port 6060 making server accessible at http://localhost:6060/. The sample application is located at http://localhost:6060/x/.
If you provided a SNOWFLAKE_UID_KEY during initialization, you must provide the same key at this step too. Otherwise primary key collisions may happen.