What's the difference between `docker run -d` and `docker run -dit`? - docker

If I would like to use it as a development environment for Node.js, is it alright to just docker run -d?
Do I really need the below?
--interactive , -i Keep STDIN open even if not attached
--tty , -t Allocate a pseudo-TTY

In a normal scenario, there is the only one difference
-dit Run the container in the background
-it Run the container in the foreground and will allocate a pseudo-terminal.
But what if the entry point is bash? like in the case of ubuntu-dockerfile. As they believe that the user will override the CMD as per their need or dependent Dockerfile.
# overwrite this with 'CMD []' in a dependent Dockerfile
CMD ["/bin/bash"]
So in this case, when you only specify -d your container will be stopped as soon as it started. So what you need to allocate pseudo-terminal by adding -dit.
As you can see that the container is not running, let check-in stoped container.
so we can that container is exited a minutes ago. Let try with -dit
We can see that the container is running. Same case with alpine if you run alpine with -d it will also stop.
docker run -d alpine
This will exit as soon as it started, so -dit will Allocate a pseudo-TTY as mentioned in the documentation.

Related

How can I keep docker container running?

I want to run multiple containers automatically and create something,
but some images, such as swarm, will automatically stop after run or start.
I already try like that
docker run -d swarm
docker run -d swarm /bin/bash tail -f /dev/null
docker run -itd swarm bash -c "while true; do sleep 1; done"
but 'docker ps' show nothing, and I tried to build Dockerfile by typing:
FROM swarm
ENTRYPOINT ["echo"]
and The image does not run with error message :
docker: Error response from daemon: invalid header field value "oci runtime error: container_linux.go:247: starting container process caused \"exec: \\\"echo\\\": executable file not found in $PATH\"\n".
I can't understand this error... How can I keep swarm container running..?
(Sorry,my English is not good))
using -d is recommended because you can run your container with just one command and you don’t need to detach terminal of container by hitting Ctrl + P + Q.
However, there is a problem with -d option. Your container immediately stops unless the commands are not running on foreground.
Docker requires your command to keep running in the foreground. Otherwise, it thinks that your applications stops and shutdown the container.
The problem is that some application does not run in the foreground.
In this situation, you can add tail -f /dev/null to your command.
By doing this, even if your main command runs in the background, your container doesn’t stop because tail is keep running in the foreground.
docker run -d swarm tail -f /dev/null
docker ps shows container
Now you can attach your container by using docker exec container_name command
or
docker run -d swarm command tail -f /dev/null
First of all you don't want to mix the -i and -d switches. Either you would like to run the container in interactive or detached mode. In your case in detached mode:
docker run -d swarm /bin/bash tail -f /dev/null
There are also no need to allocate a tty using the -t flag, since this only needs to be done in interactive mode.
You should have a look at the Docker run reference
Docker container does two type of task. One is to perform and exit & other is to run it in background.
To run docker container in background, there are few options.
Run using shell. docker run -it <image> /bin/bash
For continuously running container. docker run -d -p 8080:8080 <image>. Assuming image will expose port 8080 and in listening mode.
It's fine to to a tail on /dev/null, but why not make it do something useful?
The following command will reap orphan processes, so no zombie (defunct) precesses are left floating around. Also some init.d / restart scripts doesn't allow this.
exec sh -c 'while true ;do wait ;done'
You are right docker run -itd swarm ( Without give argument for container( bash -c "while true; do sleep 1; done" ) )works fine .If you pass argument for docker run it will run the command and terminates the container.If you want to run the container permanently first start the container with docker run -itd swarm and check if the container runs or not by docker ps now the container runs , if you want to execute any command in container use docker exec -itd container_name command Remember : Only use the command which not stop the container. bash -c "while true; do sleep 1; done this command will stop the container ( Because this is complete command if we execute in normal terminal it execute and terminate , this type of command also terminates the container ).
I Hope this Helps..
Basically this is the method , but your docker image is swarm so it is different and i don't know about swarm docker image and i am not using that .But after i research about that . First i run the docker swarm image it shows.,
After that i understand we run docker swarm image by using only five commands in picture like create, list manage, join, help . if we run swarm image without command like docker run -itd swarm it takes command as --help . Sorry, But i don't know what is the purpose of swarm image. For more usage check https://hub.docker.com/_/swarm/ .
The answer that i added docker run -itd image tail -f /dev/null is not for swarm image , it is for docker images like ubuntu,fedora, centos.
Just read the usage of swarm image and why it is used .
After if you have any issue post your issue in https://github.com/docker/swarm-library-image/issues
Thank You...
have a container running
docker run --rm -d --name=tmp ubuntu sleep infinity
example of requesting a command from the dorment container
docker exec tmp echo hello from container
notes:
--rm removes the container if it is stopped
-d runs the container in the background
--name=tmp name the container so you control how to denote it
ubuntu pushes a light image to exec your commands
sleep infinity keeps the container dorment

Docker container not running after creating with mounted volume

I am trying to use an image that I pulled from the docker database. However I need data from the host to use some programs loaded into the image. I created a container with this
sudo docker run --name="mdrap" -v "/home/ubuntu/profile/reads/SE:/usr/local/src/volume" sigenae/drap
it appears that everything works and then I start the container
sudo docker start mdrap
but when I check the running containers it is not listed there and if I try to load the container into /bin/bash it tells me the container is not running. I am a beginner with docker and am only trying to use an image to run programs with all the required dependencies, what am I doing wrong?
docker start is only to start a stopped container. It's not necessary after a docker run. (but more after a docker **create**, like in the documentation)
A container is started as long as it's main process is running.
As soon as the main process stops, the container stops.
The main process of a container can be either:
the ENTRYPOINT if defined
the CMD if no ENTRYPOINT and no command line argument
the command line argument
In your case, as you don't have any command line argument (after the image name on the docker run command) and the image only defines a CMD (=/bin/bash), your container is trying to start a /bin/bash.
But, as you don't launch the container with the --interactive/-i nor --tty/-t (again like in the documentation), your process as nothing to interact with and stops (idem for each start of this container).
So your solution is simply to follow the documentation:
docker create --name drap --privileged -v /home/ubuntu/profile/reads/SE:/usr/local/src/volume -i -t sigenae/drap /bin/bash
docker start drap
docker exec -i -t drap /bin/bash
Or even simpler:
docker run --name drap --privileged -v /home/ubuntu/profile/reads/SE:/usr/local/src/volume -i -t sigenae/drap /bin/bash

Docker container will automatically stop after "docker run -d"

According to tutorial I read so far, use "docker run -d" will start a container from image, and the container will run in background. This is how it looks like, we can see we already have container id.
root#docker:/home/root# docker run -d centos
605e3928cdddb844526bab691af51d0c9262e0a1fc3d41de3f59be1a58e1bd1d
But if I ran "docker ps", nothing was returned.
So I tried "docker ps -a", I can see container already exited:
root#docker:/home/root# docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
605e3928cddd centos:latest "/bin/bash" 31 minutes ago Exited (0) 31 minutes ago kickass_swartz
Anything I did wrong? How can I troubleshoot this issue?
The centos dockerfile has a default command bash.
That means, when run in background (-d), the shell exits immediately.
Update 2017
More recent versions of docker authorize to run a container both in detached mode and in foreground mode (-t, -i or -it)
In that case, you don't need any additional command and this is enough:
docker run -t -d centos
The bash will wait in the background.
That was initially reported in kalyani-chaudhari's answer and detailed in jersey bean's answer.
vonc#voncvb:~$ d ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
4a50fd9e9189 centos "/bin/bash" 8 seconds ago Up 2 seconds wonderful_wright
Note that for alpine, Marinos An reports in the comments:
docker run -t -d alpine/git does not keep the process up.
Had to do: docker run --entrypoint "/bin/sh" -it alpine/git
Original answer (2015)
As mentioned in this article:
Instead of running with docker run -i -t image your-command, using -d is recommended because you can run your container with just one command and you don’t need to detach terminal of container by hitting Ctrl + P + Q.
However, there is a problem with -d option. Your container immediately stops unless the commands keep running in foreground.
Docker requires your command to keep running in the foreground. Otherwise, it thinks that your applications stops and shutdown the container.
The problem is that some application does not run in the foreground. How can we make it easier?
In this situation, you can add tail -f /dev/null to your command.
By doing this, even if your main command runs in the background, your container doesn’t stop because tail is keep running in the foreground.
So this would work:
docker run -d centos tail -f /dev/null
Or in Dockerfile:
ENTRYPOINT ["tail"]
CMD ["-f","/dev/null"]
A docker ps would show the centos container still running.
From there, you can attach to it or detach from it (or docker exec some commands).
According to this answer, adding the -t flag will prevent the container from exiting when running in the background. You can then use docker exec -i -t <image> /bin/bash to get into a shell prompt.
docker run -t -d <image> <command>
It seems that the -t option isn't documented very well, though the help says that it "allocates a pseudo-TTY."
Background
A Docker container runs a process (the "command" or "entrypoint") that keeps it alive. The container will continue to run as long as the command continues to run.
In your case, the command (/bin/bash, by default, on centos:latest) is exiting immediately (as bash does when it's not connected to a terminal and has nothing to run).
Normally, when you run a container in daemon mode (with -d), the container is running some sort of daemon process (like httpd). In this case, as long as the httpd daemon is running, the container will remain alive.
What you appear to be trying to do is to keep the container alive without a daemon process running inside the container. This is somewhat strange (because the container isn't doing anything useful until you interact with it, perhaps with docker exec), but there are certain cases where it might make sense to do something like this.
(Did you mean to get to a bash prompt inside the container? That's easy! docker run -it centos:latest)
Solution
A simple way to keep a container alive in daemon mode indefinitely is to run sleep infinity as the container's command. This does not rely doing strange things like allocating a TTY in daemon mode. Although it does rely on doing strange things like using sleep as your primary command.
$ docker run -d centos:latest sleep infinity
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
d651c7a9e0ad centos:latest "sleep infinity" 2 seconds ago Up 2 seconds nervous_visvesvaraya
Alternative Solution
As indicated by cjsimon, the -t option allocates a "pseudo-tty". This tricks bash into continuing to run indefinitely because it thinks it is connected to an interactive TTY (even though you have no way to interact with that particular TTY if you don't pass -i). Anyway, this should do the trick too:
$ docker run -t -d centos:latest
Not 100% sure whether -t will produce other weird interactions; maybe leave a comment below if it does.
Hi this issue is because docker containers exit if there is no running application in the container.
-d
option is just to run a container in deamon mode.
So the trick to make your container continuously running is point to a shell file in docker which will keep your application running.You can try with a start.sh file
Eg: docker run -d centos sh /yourlocation/start.sh
This start.sh should point to a never ending application.
In case if you dont want any application to be running,you can install monit which will keep your docker container running.
Please let us know if these two cases worked for you to keep your container running.
All the best
You can accomplish what you want with either:
docker run -t -d <image-name>
or
docker run -i -d <image-name>
or
docker run -it -d <image-name>
The command parameter as suggested by other answers (i.e. tail -f /dev/null) is completely optional, and is NOT required to get your container to stay running in the background.
Also note the Docker documentation suggests that combining -i and -t options will cause it to behave like a shell.
See:
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/run/#foreground
I have this code snippet run from the ENTRYPOINT in my docker file:
while true
do
echo "Press [CTRL+C] to stop.."
sleep 1
done
Run the built docker image as:
docker run -td <image name>
Log in to the container shell:
docker exec -it <container id> /bin/bash
execute command as follows :
docker run -t -d <image-name>
if you want to specify port then command as below:
docker run -t -d -p <port-no> <image-name>
verify the running container using following command:
docker ps
Docker container exits if task inside is done, so if you want to keep it alive even if it does not have any job or already finished them, you can do docker run -di image. After you do docker container ls you will see it running.
Docker requires your command to keep running in the foreground. Otherwise, it thinks that your applications stops and shutdown the container.
So if your docker entry script is a background process like following:
/usr/local/bin/confd -interval=30 -backend etcd -node $CONFIG_CENTER &
The '&' makes the container stop and exit if there are no other foreground process triggered later.
So the solution is just remove the '&' or have another foreground CMD running after it, such as
tail -f server.log
If you are using CMD at the end of your Dockerfile, what you can do is adding the code at the end. This will only work if your docker is built on ubuntu, or any OS that can use bash.
&& /bin/bash
Briefly the end of your Dockerfile will look like something like this.
...
CMD ls && ... && /bin/bash
So if you have anything running automatically after you run your docker image, and when the task is complete the bash terminal will be active inside your docker. Thereby, you can enter you shell commands.
Maybe it is just me but on CentOS 7.3.1611 and Docker 1.12.6 but I ended up having to use a combination of the answers posted by #VonC & #Christopher Simon to get this working reliably. Nothing I did before this would stop the container from exiting after it ran CMD successfully. I am starting oracle-xe-11Gr2 and sshd.
Dockerfile
...
RUN ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key -N '' && systemctl enable sshd
...
CMD /etc/init.d/oracle-xe start && /sbin/sshd && tail -f /dev/null
Then adding -d -t and -i to run
docker run --shm-size=2g --name oracle-db -d -t -i -p 5022:22 -p 5080:8080 -p 1521:1521 centos-oracle:7.3.1611
Finally after hours of bashing my head against the wall
ssh -v root#127.0.0.1 -p 5022
...
root#127.0.0.1's password:
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
For whatever reason the above will exit after executing CMD if the tail -f is removed, or any of the -t -d -i options are omitted.
I had the same issue, just opening another terminal with a bash on it worked for me :
create container:
docker run -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-CTP3.0-ubuntu
containerid=52bbc9b30557
start container:
docker start 52bbc9b30557
start bash to keep container running:
docker exec -it 52bbc9b30557 bash
start process you need:
docker exec -it 52bbc9b30557 /path_to_cool_your_app
Running docker with interactive mode might solve the issue.
Here is the example for running image with and without interactive mode
chaitra#RSK-IND-BLR-L06:~/dockers$ sudo docker run -d -t -i test_again1.0
b6b9a942a79b1243bada59db19c7999cfff52d0a8744542fa843c95354966a18
chaitra#RSK-IND-BLR-L06:~/dockers$ sudo docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
chaitra#RSK-IND-BLR-L06:~/dockers$ sudo docker run -d -t -i test_again1.0 bash
c3d6a9529fd70c5b2dc2d7e90fe662d19c6dad8549e9c812fb2b7ce2105d7ff5
chaitra#RSK-IND-BLR-L06:~/dockers$ sudo docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
c3d6a9529fd7 test_again1.0 "bash" 2 seconds ago Up 1 second awesome_haibt
You can simply use:
docker container run -d -it <container name or id> /bin/bash
I have explained it in the following post that has the same question.
How to retain docker alpine container after "exit" is used?
I was also facing the same problem but in a different manner. When I create the docker containers. it automatically stops the unused containers which are just running in the background. Sometimes it also stops the containers that are in the use.
In my situation, this is because of the permission of the docker.sock files it earlier has.
what you have to do is :-
Install docker again.(As i work on ubuntu i install it from here)
Run the command to change the permissions.
sudo chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock
Install docker-compose (this is optional as I have compose file to create many containers together)
sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.26.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
check for the version to ensure that I have the latest one and not get problem with some deprications.
Then I run the docker container build.
Argument order matters
Jersey Beans answer (all 3 examples) worked for me. After quite a bit of trial and error I realized that the order of the arguments matter.
Keeps the container running in the background:
docker run -t -d <image-name>
Keeps the container running in the foreground: docker run <image-name> -t -d
It wasn't obvious to me coming from a Powershell background.
if you want to operate on the container, you need to run it in foreground to keep it alive.
There are multiple options out there to run the container in foreground/detached state. But if you still feel the issue is not resolved, you can try troubleshooting the issue by viewing the logs.
sudo docker logs -f >> container.log
additionally you can also use --details to show extra details provided to logs.
Incorrect Path to App in Dockerfile:
I was migrating an application from a RHEL server to a Docker container using Alpine Linux.
No errors during the build, so I was surprised to see the container immediately exit!
First port of call:
docker logs <containerID>
This revealed the path of the binary I had supplied to CMD in the Dockerfile was bogus:
line 0: /sbin/postfix: not found
Well that told me how things were broken, but not specifically where: I still required the correct path for the binary in Alpine Linux...
Troubleshooting:
Googling didn't reveal the correct path to it, so I added the following line to my Dockerfile:
RUN which postfix
I then reviewed my build logging- provided by the below command appended to my build command- to retrieve the value of RUN which postfix
--progress=plain > /path/to/build.log 2>&1
The Fix:
I deleted this test build, supplied the correct path- /usr/sbin/postfix - to CMD in the Dockerfile, deleted RUN which postfix and ran another build.
Voila; the process now remained up.
So a duff path was causing the container to immediately exit...
These 4 commands all work to keep your docker container running:
docker run -td centos
docker run -dt centos
docker run -t -d centos
docker run -d -t centos
Firstly, You need to check if any container is running
Type command,
docker ps -all
If any container is running then stop them
Type command,
docker stop Container Id
Now, Finally run the docker by using below command..........
docker run -t -p 2020:3000 dockerImageName
Hence, Open your google chrome and visit on localhost:2020
Congrats :)

Container is not running

I tried to start a exited container like follows,
I listed down all available containers using docker ps -a. It listed the following:
I entered the following commands to start the container which is in the exited stage and enter into the terminal of that image.
docker start 79b3fa70b51d
docker exec -it 79b3fa70b51d /bin/sh
It is throwing the following error.
FATA[0000] Error response from daemon: Container 79b3fa70b51d is not running
But when I start the container using docker start 79b3fa70b51d. It throws the container ID as output which is normal if it have everything work normally.
What is the cause of this error?
By default, docker container will exit immediately if you do not have any task running on the container.
To keep the container running in the background, try to run it with --detach (or -d) argument.
For examples:
docker pull debian
docker run -t -d --name my_debian debian
e7672d54b0c2
docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
e7672d54b0c2 debian "bash" 3 minutes ago Up 3 minutes my_debian
#now you can execute command on the container
docker exec -it my_debian bash
root#e7672d54b0c2:/#
Container 79b3fa70b51d seems to only do an echo.
That means it starts, echo and then exits immediately.
The next docker exec command wouldn't find it running in order to attach itself to that container and execute any command: it is too late. The container has already exited.
The docker exec command runs a new command in a running container.
The command started using docker exec will only run while the container's primary process (PID 1) is running
If it's not possible to start the main process again (for long enough), there is also the possibility to commit the container to a new image and run a new container from this image. While this is not the usual best practice workflow (the new image is not repeatable), I find it really useful to debug a failing script once in a while.
docker exec -it 6198ef53d943 bash
Error response from daemon: Container 6198ef53d9431a3f38e8b38d7869940f7fb803afac4a2d599812b8e42419c574 is not running
docker commit 6198ef53d943
sha256:ace7ca65e6e3fdb678d9cdfb33a7a165c510e65c3bc28fecb960ac993c37ef33
docker run -it ace7ca65e6e bash
root#72d38a8c787d:/#
This happens with images for which the script does not launch a service awaiting requests, therefore the container exits at the end of the script.
This is typically the case with most base OS images (centos, debian, etc.), or also with the node images.
Your best bet is to run the image in interactive mode. Example below with the node image:
docker run -it node /bin/bash
Output is
root#cacc7897a20c:/# echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
First of all, we have to start the docker container
ankit#ankit-HP-Notebook:~$ sudo docker start 3a19b39ea021
3a19b39ea021
After that, check the docker container:
ankit#ankit-HP-Notebook:~$ sudo docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
3a19b39ea021 coreapps/ubuntu16.04:latest "bash" 13 hours ago
Up 9 seconds ubuntu1
455b66057060 hello-world "/hello" 4 weeks ago
Exited (0) 4 weeks ago vigorous_bardeen
Then execute by using the command below:
ankit#ankit-HP-Notebook:~$ sudo docker exec -it 3a19b39ea021 bash
root#3a19b39ea021:/#
Here is what worked for me.
Get the container ID and restart.
docker ps -a --no-trunc
ace7ca65e6e3fdb678d9cdfb33a7a165c510e65c3bc28fecb960ac993c37ef33
docker restart ace7ca65e6e3fdb678d9cdfb33a7a165c510e65c3bc28fecb960ac993c37ef33
docker run -it --entrypoint /bin/bash <imageid>
This was posted by L0j1k in the below post and worked for me.
How do I get into a Docker container's shell?
use command
> docker container ls
> docker image ls
Check your Image id and note it down. Here my Image id is "6c929ca002da" , you guys have to use your own Image id instead of mine..
> docker start 6c929ca002da
here our image is in down mode we have to start it first by using image id.
6c929ca002da is my image id
> `docker exec -it 6c929ca002da bash`
after running this command you can see
your image file in running mode like this
root#6c929ca002da
Here I am using root mode go root mode by using command
sudo su
The reason is just what the accepted answer said. I add some extra information, which may provide a further understanding about this issue.
The status of a container includes Created, Running, Stopped,
Exited, Dead and others as I know.
When we execute docker create, docker daemon will create a
container with its status of Created.
When docker start, docker daemon will start a existing container
which its status may be Created or Stopped.
When we execute docker run, docker daemon will finish it in two
steps: docker create and docker start.
When docker stop, obviously docker daemon will stop a container.
Thus container would be in Stopped status.
Coming the most important one, a container actually imagine itself
holding a long time process in it. When the process exits, the
container holding process would exit too. Thus the status of this
container would be Exited.
When does the process exit? In another word, what’s the process, how did we start it?
The answer is CMD in a dockerfile or command in the following expression, which is bash by default in some images, i.e. ubutu:18.04.
docker run ubuntu:18.04 [command]
docker run -it <image_id> /bin/bash
Run in interactive mode executing then bash shell
For anyone attempting something similar using a Dockerfile...
Running in detached mode won't help. The container will always exit (stop running) if the command is non-blocking, this is the case with bash.
In this case, a workaround would be:
1. Commit the resulting image:
(container_name = the name of the container you want to base the image off of,
image_name = the name of the image to be created
docker commit container_name image_name
2. Use docker run to create a new container using the new image, specifying the command you want to run. Here, I will run "bash":
docker run -it image_name bash
This would get you the interactive login you're looking for.
Here's a solution when the docker container exits normally and you can edit the Dockerfile.
Generally, when a docker container is run, an application is served by running a command. From the Dockerfile reference,
Both CMD and ENTRYPOINT instructions define what command gets executed when
running a container. ...
Dockerfile should specify at least one of CMD or ENTRYPOINT commands.
When you build a image and not specify any command with CMD or ENTRYPOINT, the base image's CMD or ENTRYPOINT command would be executed.
For example, the Official Ubuntu Dockerfile has CMD ["/bin/bash"] (https://hub.docker.com/_/ubuntu). Now, the bin/bash/ command can accept input and docker run -it IMAGE_ID command attaches STDIN to the container. The result is that you get an interactive terminal and the container keeps running.
When a command with CMD or ENTRYPOINT is specified in the Dockerfile, this command gets executed when running the container. Now, if this command can finish without requiring any input, it will finish and the container will exit. docker run -it IMAGE_ID will NOT provide the interactive terminal in this case. An example would be the docker image built from the Dockerfile below-
FROM ubuntu
ENTRYPOINT echo hello
If you need to go to the terminal of this image, you will need to keep the container running by modifying the entrypoint command.
FROM ubuntu
ENTRYPOINT echo hello && sleep infinity
After running the container normally with docker run IMAGE_ID, you can just go to another terminal and use docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID bash to get the container's terminal.
Perhaps too late for this active community, but there are a lot of causes because a container may not execute correctly and exit writing a console message or not. For all the newbies making nodeJS containers I'll recommend you to change the Dockerfile and erase all CMD and ENTRYPOINT you may have, and add only an ENTRYPOINT to ["/bin/sh"] (See my attached test Dockerfile example). Then rebuild the Docker image and run it with the command:
docker run -it --rm your_named_image:tag
Voilà you will be getting inside the container with a shell. Then you can test your app typing the command yourself i.e. node app.js and see what is happening. After you see all is ok, you can then change your docker file and erase the ENTRYPOINT to "/bin/sh" and use yourself i.e ["node","app.js"] or whatever. Always consider the previous answers to this post; When the app inside the container finish it will stop the running container.
Here is an example for my "test" Dockerfile:
FROM node:16.4.0-alpine
ENV NODE_ENV=production
WORKDIR /app
COPY ["package.json","package-lock.json*", "./"]
RUN npm install --production
COPY ./dist .
ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/sh"]
NOTE: My source files for the app (.js) on the local computer are on directory ./dist, so I have to copy at the container as you can see.
In my case , i changed certain file names and directory names of the parent directory of the Dockerfile . Due to which container not finding the required parameters to start it again.
After renaming it back to the original names, container started like butter.
I have a different take on this. I could do a docker ps and see that there is a docker container running, I even tried to restart it, but as soon as I tried to get a session for it with New-PSSession -ContainerId $containerId -RunAsAdministrator It would error out, saying:
##[error]New-PSSession : The input ContainerId xxx does not exist,
##[error]or the corresponding container is not running.
My problem was I was running with network service and it did not have enough permissions to see the container, even though I had given it permissions to run docker commands (with docker security group configuration)
I didn't know how to enable working with containers, so I had to revert to running it as an admin user instead
In my case, I had previously killed the running container with,
sudo docker kill testdeb
So when I exec the container I got the error,
Error response from daemon: Container fcc29295fe78a425155c533506f58fc5b30a50ee9eb85c21031e8699b3f6ff01 is not running
The solution was to start the container with,
sudo docker start testdeb
Now I have a container running ,
sudo docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
fcc29295fe78 debian "bash" 9 hours ago Up 11 seconds testdeb
Which wasn't previously running
The below approach I tried works in an windows vscode environment.
docker run --name yourcontainer -p 3306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=your password -d mysql
I see lot of similar answers but adding port number '-p 3306:3306', made the status up and running. You can verify by using the command docker ps -a

How do I run a command on an already existing Docker container?

I created a container with -d so it's not interactive.
docker run -d shykes/pybuilder bin/bash
I see that the container has exited:
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
d6c45e8cc5f0 shykes/pybuilder:latest "bin/bash" 41 minutes ago Exited (0) 2 seconds ago clever_bardeen
Now I would like to run occasional commands on the machine and exit. Just to get the response.
I tried to start the machine. I tried attaching. I thought I could call run with a container, but that does not seem to be allowed. Using start just seems to run and then exist quickly.
I'd like to get back into interactive mode after exiting.
I tried:
docker attach d6c45e8cc5f0
But I get:
2014/10/01 22:33:34 You cannot attach to a stopped container, start it first
But if I start it, it exits anyway. Catch 22. I can't win.
In October 2014 the Docker team introduced docker exec command: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/exec/
So now you can run any command in a running container just knowing its ID (or name):
docker exec -it <container_id_or_name> echo "Hello from container!"
Note that exec command works only on already running container. If the container is currently stopped, you need to first run it with the following command:
docker run -it -d shykes/pybuilder /bin/bash
The most important thing here is the -d option, which stands for detached. It means that the command you initially provided to the container (/bin/bash) will be run in the background and the container will not stop immediately.
Your container will exit as the command you gave it will end. Use the following options to keep it live:
-i Keep STDIN open even if not attached.
-t Allocate a pseudo-TTY.
So your new run command is:
docker run -it -d shykes/pybuilder bin/bash
If you would like to attach to an already running container:
docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID /bin/bash
In these examples /bin/bash is used as the command.
So I think the answer is simpler than many misleading answers above.
To start an existing container which is stopped
docker start <container-name/ID>
To stop a running container
docker stop <container-name/ID>
Then to login to the interactive shell of a container
docker exec -it <container-name/ID> bash
To start an existing container and attach to it in one command
docker start -ai <container-name/ID>
Beware, this will stop the container on exit. But in general, you need to start the container, attach and stop it after you are done.
To expand on katrmr's answer, if the container is stopped and can't be started due to an error, you'll need to commit it to an image. Then you can launch bash in the new image:
docker commit [CONTAINER_ID] temporary_image
docker run --entrypoint=bash -it temporary_image
Some of the answers here are misleading because they concern containers that are running, not stopped.
Sven Dowideit explained on the Docker forum that containers are bound to their process (and Docker can't change the process of a stopped container, seemingly due at least to its internal structure: https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/1437). So, basically the only option is to commit the container to an image and run it with a different command.
See https://forums.docker.com/t/run-command-in-stopped-container/343
(I believe the "ENTRYPOINT with arguments" approach wouldn't work either, since you still wouldn't be able to change the arguments to a stopped container.)
I had to use bash -c to run my command:
docker exec -it CONTAINER_ID bash -c "mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql mysql"
Creating a container and sending commands to it, one by one:
docker create --name=my_new_container -it ubuntu
docker start my_new_container
// ps -a says 'Up X seconds'
docker exec my_new_container /path/to/my/command
// ps -a still says 'Up X+Y seconds'
docker exec my_new_container /path/to/another/command
If you are trying to run shell script, you need run it as bash.
docker exec -it containerid bash -c /path/to/your/script.sh
This is a combined answer I made up using the CDR LDN answer above and the answer I found here.
The following example starts an Arch Linux container from an image, and then installs git on that container using the pacman tool:
sudo docker run -it -d archlinux /bin/bash
sudo docker ps -l
sudo docker exec -it [container_ID] script /dev/null -c "pacman -S git --noconfirm"
That is all.
Pipe a command to docker exec bash stdin
Must remove the -t for it to work:
echo 'touch myfile' | docker exec -i CONTAINER_NAME bash
This can be more convenient that using CLI options sometimes.
Tested with:
docker run --name ub16 -it ubuntu:16.04 bash
then on another shell:
echo 'touch myfile' | docker exec -i ub16 bash
Then on first shell:
ls -l myfile
Tested on Docker 1.13.1, Ubuntu 16.04 host.
I would like to note that the top answer is a little misleading.
The issue with executing docker run is that a new container is created every time. However, there are cases where we would like to revisit old containers or not take up space with new containers.
(Given clever_bardeen is the name of the container created...)
In OP's case, make sure the docker image is first running by executing the following command:
docker start clever_bardeen
Then, execute the docker container using the following command:
docker exec -it clever_bardeen /bin/bash
I usually use this:
docker exec -it my-container-name bash
to continuously interact with a running container.
Assuming the image is using the default entrypoint /bin/sh -c, running /bin/bash will exit immediately in daemon mode (-d). If you want this container to run an interactive shell, use -it instead of -d. If you want to execute arbitrary commands in a container usually executing another process, you might want to try nsenter or nsinit. Have a look at https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2014/07/enter-docker-container/ for the details.
Unfortunately it is impossible to override ENTRYPOINT with arguments with docker run --entrypoint to achieve this goal.
Note: you can override the ENTRYPOINT setting using --entrypoint, but
this can only set the binary to exec (no sh -c will be used).
For Mac:
$ docker exec -it <container-name> sh
if you want to connect as root user:
$ docker exec -u 0 -it <container-name> sh
Simple answer: start and attach at the same time. In this case you are doing exactly what you asked for.
docker start <CONTAINER_ID/CONTAINER_NAME> && docker attach <CONTAINER_ID/CONTAINER_NAME>
make sure to change <CONTAINER_ID/CONTAINER_NAME>
I am running windows container and I need to look inside the docker container for files and folder created and copied.
In order to do that I used following docker entrypoint command to get the command prompt running inside the container or attach to the container.
ENTRYPOINT ["C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe", "-D", "FOREGROUND"]
That helped me both to the command prompt attach to container and to keep the container a live. :)
# docker exec -d container_id command
Ex:
# docker exec -d xcdefrdtt service jira stop
A quick way to resume and access the most recently exited container:
docker start -a -i `docker ps -q -l`
An easy solution that solved a similar problem for me:
docker run --interactive --tty <name_of_image>

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