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How to control host from docker container?
For example, how to execute copied to host bash script?
This answer is just a more detailed version of Bradford Medeiros's solution, which for me as well turned out to be the best answer, so credit goes to him.
In his answer, he explains WHAT to do (named pipes) but not exactly HOW to do it.
I have to admit I didn't know what named pipes were when I read his solution. So I struggled to implement it (while it's actually very simple), but I did succeed.
So the point of my answer is just detailing the commands you need to run in order to get it working, but again, credit goes to him.
PART 1 - Testing the named pipe concept without docker
On the main host, chose the folder where you want to put your named pipe file, for instance /path/to/pipe/ and a pipe name, for instance mypipe, and then run:
mkfifo /path/to/pipe/mypipe
The pipe is created.
Type
ls -l /path/to/pipe/mypipe
And check the access rights start with "p", such as
prw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 mypipe
Now run:
tail -f /path/to/pipe/mypipe
The terminal is now waiting for data to be sent into this pipe
Now open another terminal window.
And then run:
echo "hello world" > /path/to/pipe/mypipe
Check the first terminal (the one with tail -f), it should display "hello world"
PART 2 - Run commands through the pipe
On the host container, instead of running tail -f which just outputs whatever is sent as input, run this command that will execute it as commands:
eval "$(cat /path/to/pipe/mypipe)"
Then, from the other terminal, try running:
echo "ls -l" > /path/to/pipe/mypipe
Go back to the first terminal and you should see the result of the ls -l command.
PART 3 - Make it listen forever
You may have noticed that in the previous part, right after ls -l output is displayed, it stops listening for commands.
Instead of eval "$(cat /path/to/pipe/mypipe)", run:
while true; do eval "$(cat /path/to/pipe/mypipe)"; done
(you can nohup that)
Now you can send unlimited number of commands one after the other, they will all be executed, not just the first one.
PART 4 - Make it work even when reboot happens
The only caveat is if the host has to reboot, the "while" loop will stop working.
To handle reboot, here what I've done:
Put the while true; do eval "$(cat /path/to/pipe/mypipe)"; done in a file called execpipe.sh with #!/bin/bash header
Don't forget to chmod +x it
Add it to crontab by running
crontab -e
And then adding
#reboot /path/to/execpipe.sh
At this point, test it: reboot your server, and when it's back up, echo some commands into the pipe and check if they are executed.
Of course, you aren't able to see the output of commands, so ls -l won't help, but touch somefile will help.
Another option is to modify the script to put the output in a file, such as:
while true; do eval "$(cat /path/to/pipe/mypipe)" &> /somepath/output.txt; done
Now you can run ls -l and the output (both stdout and stderr using &> in bash) should be in output.txt.
PART 5 - Make it work with docker
If you are using both docker compose and dockerfile like I do, here is what I've done:
Let's assume you want to mount the mypipe's parent folder as /hostpipe in your container
Add this:
VOLUME /hostpipe
in your dockerfile in order to create a mount point
Then add this:
volumes:
- /path/to/pipe:/hostpipe
in your docker compose file in order to mount /path/to/pipe as /hostpipe
Restart your docker containers.
PART 6 - Testing
Exec into your docker container:
docker exec -it <container> bash
Go into the mount folder and check you can see the pipe:
cd /hostpipe && ls -l
Now try running a command from within the container:
echo "touch this_file_was_created_on_main_host_from_a_container.txt" > /hostpipe/mypipe
And it should work!
WARNING: If you have an OSX (Mac OS) host and a Linux container, it won't work (explanation here https://stackoverflow.com/a/43474708/10018801 and issue here https://github.com/docker/for-mac/issues/483 ) because the pipe implementation is not the same, so what you write into the pipe from Linux can be read only by a Linux and what you write into the pipe from Mac OS can be read only by a Mac OS (this sentence might not be very accurate, but just be aware that a cross-platform issue exists).
For instance, when I run my docker setup in DEV from my Mac OS computer, the named pipe as explained above does not work. But in staging and production, I have Linux host and Linux containers, and it works perfectly.
PART 7 - Example from Node.JS container
Here is how I send a command from my Node.JS container to the main host and retrieve the output:
const pipePath = "/hostpipe/mypipe"
const outputPath = "/hostpipe/output.txt"
const commandToRun = "pwd && ls-l"
console.log("delete previous output")
if (fs.existsSync(outputPath)) fs.unlinkSync(outputPath)
console.log("writing to pipe...")
const wstream = fs.createWriteStream(pipePath)
wstream.write(commandToRun)
wstream.close()
console.log("waiting for output.txt...") //there are better ways to do that than setInterval
let timeout = 10000 //stop waiting after 10 seconds (something might be wrong)
const timeoutStart = Date.now()
const myLoop = setInterval(function () {
if (Date.now() - timeoutStart > timeout) {
clearInterval(myLoop);
console.log("timed out")
} else {
//if output.txt exists, read it
if (fs.existsSync(outputPath)) {
clearInterval(myLoop);
const data = fs.readFileSync(outputPath).toString()
if (fs.existsSync(outputPath)) fs.unlinkSync(outputPath) //delete the output file
console.log(data) //log the output of the command
}
}
}, 300);
Use a named pipe.
On the host OS, create a script to loop and read commands, and then you call eval on that.
Have the docker container read to that named pipe.
To be able to access the pipe, you need to mount it via a volume.
This is similar to the SSH mechanism (or a similar socket-based method), but restricts you properly to the host device, which is probably better. Plus you don't have to be passing around authentication information.
My only warning is to be cautious about why you are doing this. It's totally something to do if you want to create a method to self-upgrade with user input or whatever, but you probably don't want to call a command to get some config data, as the proper way would be to pass that in as args/volume into docker. Also, be cautious about the fact that you are evaling, so just give the permission model a thought.
Some of the other answers such as running a script. Under a volume won't work generically since they won't have access to the full system resources, but it might be more appropriate depending on your usage.
The solution I use is to connect to the host over SSH and execute the command like this:
ssh -l ${USERNAME} ${HOSTNAME} "${SCRIPT}"
UPDATE
As this answer keeps getting up votes, I would like to remind (and highly recommend), that the account which is being used to invoke the script should be an account with no permissions at all, but only executing that script as sudo (that can be done from sudoers file).
UPDATE: Named Pipes
The solution I suggested above was only the one I used while I was relatively new to Docker. Now in 2021 take a look on the answers that talk about Named Pipes. This seems to be a better solution.
However, nobody there mentioned anything about security. The script that will evaluate the commands sent through the pipe (the script that calls eval) must actually not use eval for the whole pipe output, but to handle specific cases and call the required commands according to the text sent, otherwise any command that can do anything can be sent through the pipe.
That REALLY depends on what you need that bash script to do!
For example, if the bash script just echoes some output, you could just do
docker run --rm -v $(pwd)/mybashscript.sh:/mybashscript.sh ubuntu bash /mybashscript.sh
Another possibility is that you want the bash script to install some software- say the script to install docker-compose. you could do something like
docker run --rm -v /usr/bin:/usr/bin --privileged -v $(pwd)/mybashscript.sh:/mybashscript.sh ubuntu bash /mybashscript.sh
But at this point you're really getting into having to know intimately what the script is doing to allow the specific permissions it needs on your host from inside the container.
My laziness led me to find the easiest solution that wasn't published as an answer here.
It is based on the great article by luc juggery.
All you need to do in order to gain a full shell to your linux host from within your docker container is:
docker run --privileged --pid=host -it alpine:3.8 \
nsenter -t 1 -m -u -n -i sh
Explanation:
--privileged : grants additional permissions to the container, it allows the container to gain access to the devices of the host (/dev)
--pid=host : allows the containers to use the processes tree of the Docker host (the VM in which the Docker daemon is running)
nsenter utility: allows to run a process in existing namespaces (the building blocks that provide isolation to containers)
nsenter (-t 1 -m -u -n -i sh) allows to run the process sh in the same isolation context as the process with PID 1.
The whole command will then provide an interactive sh shell in the VM
This setup has major security implications and should be used with cautions (if any).
Write a simple server python server listening on a port (say 8080), bind the port -p 8080:8080 with the container, make a HTTP request to localhost:8080 to ask the python server running shell scripts with popen, run a curl or writing code to make a HTTP request curl -d '{"foo":"bar"}' localhost:8080
#!/usr/bin/python
from BaseHTTPServer import BaseHTTPRequestHandler,HTTPServer
import subprocess
import json
PORT_NUMBER = 8080
# This class will handles any incoming request from
# the browser
class myHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_POST(self):
content_len = int(self.headers.getheader('content-length'))
post_body = self.rfile.read(content_len)
self.send_response(200)
self.end_headers()
data = json.loads(post_body)
# Use the post data
cmd = "your shell cmd"
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
p_status = p.wait()
(output, err) = p.communicate()
print "Command output : ", output
print "Command exit status/return code : ", p_status
self.wfile.write(cmd + "\n")
return
try:
# Create a web server and define the handler to manage the
# incoming request
server = HTTPServer(('', PORT_NUMBER), myHandler)
print 'Started httpserver on port ' , PORT_NUMBER
# Wait forever for incoming http requests
server.serve_forever()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print '^C received, shutting down the web server'
server.socket.close()
If you are not worried about security and you're simply looking to start a docker container on the host from within another docker container like the OP, you can share the docker server running on the host with the docker container by sharing it's listen socket.
Please see https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/security/#docker-daemon-attack-surface and see if your personal risk tolerance allows this for this particular application.
You can do this by adding the following volume args to your start command
docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock ...
or by sharing /var/run/docker.sock within your docker compose file like this:
version: '3'
services:
ci:
command: ...
image: ...
volumes:
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
When you run the docker start command within your docker container,
the docker server running on your host will see the request and provision the sibling container.
credit: http://jpetazzo.github.io/2015/09/03/do-not-use-docker-in-docker-for-ci/
As Marcus reminds, docker is basically process isolation. Starting with docker 1.8, you can copy files both ways between the host and the container, see the doc of docker cp
https://docs.docker.com/reference/commandline/cp/
Once a file is copied, you can run it locally
docker run --detach-keys="ctrl-p" -it -v /:/mnt/rootdir --name testing busybox
# chroot /mnt/rootdir
#
I have a simple approach.
Step 1: Mount /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock (So you will be able to execute docker commands inside your container)
Step 2: Execute this below inside your container. The key part here is (--network host as this will execute from host context)
docker run -i --rm --network host -v /opt/test.sh:/test.sh alpine:3.7
sh /test.sh
test.sh should contain the some commands (ifconfig, netstat etc...) whatever you need.
Now you will be able to get host context output.
You can use the pipe concept, but use a file on the host and fswatch to accomplish the goal to execute a script on the host machine from a docker container. Like so (Use at your own risk):
#! /bin/bash
touch .command_pipe
chmod +x .command_pipe
# Use fswatch to execute a command on the host machine and log result
fswatch -o --event Updated .command_pipe | \
xargs -n1 -I "{}" .command_pipe >> .command_pipe_log &
docker run -it --rm \
--name alpine \
-w /home/test \
-v $PWD/.command_pipe:/dev/command_pipe \
alpine:3.7 sh
rm -rf .command_pipe
kill %1
In this example, inside the container send commands to /dev/command_pipe, like so:
/home/test # echo 'docker network create test2.network.com' > /dev/command_pipe
On the host, you can check if the network was created:
$ docker network ls | grep test2
8e029ec83afe test2.network.com bridge local
In my scenario I just ssh login the host (via host ip) within a container and then I can do anything I want to the host machine
I found answers using named pipes awesome. But I was wondering if there is a way to get the output of the executed command.
The solution is to create two named pipes:
mkfifo /path/to/pipe/exec_in
mkfifo /path/to/pipe/exec_out
Then, the solution using a loop, as suggested by #Vincent, would become:
# on the host
while true; do eval "$(cat exec_in)" > exec_out; done
And then on the docker container, we can execute the command and get the output using:
# on the container
echo "ls -l" > /path/to/pipe/exec_in
cat /path/to/pipe/exec_out
If anyone interested, my need was to use a failover IP on the host from the container, I created this simple ruby method:
def fifo_exec(cmd)
exec_in = '/path/to/pipe/exec_in'
exec_out = '/path/to/pipe/exec_out'
%x[ echo #{cmd} > #{exec_in} ]
%x[ cat #{exec_out} ]
end
# example
fifo_exec "curl https://ip4.seeip.org"
Depending on the situation, this could be a helpful resource.
This uses a job queue (Celery) that can be run on the host, commands/data could be passed to this through Redis (or rabbitmq). In the example below, this is occurring in a django application (which is commonly dockerized).
https://www.codingforentrepreneurs.com/blog/celery-redis-django/
To expand on user2915097's response:
The idea of isolation is to be able to restrict what an application/process/container (whatever your angle at this is) can do to the host system very clearly. Hence, being able to copy and execute a file would really break the whole concept.
Yes. But it's sometimes necessary.
No. That's not the case, or Docker is not the right thing to use. What you should do is declare a clear interface for what you want to do (e.g. updating a host config), and write a minimal client/server to do exactly that and nothing more. Generally, however, this doesn't seem to be very desirable. In many cases, you should simply rethink your approach and eradicate that need. Docker came into an existence when basically everything was a service that was reachable using some protocol. I can't think of any proper usecase of a Docker container getting the rights to execute arbitrary stuff on the host.
I'm creating an application that will allow users to upload video files that will then be put through some processing.
I have two containers.
Nginx container that serves the website where users can upload their video files.
Video processing container that has FFmpeg and some other processing stuff installed.
What I want to achieve. I need container 1 to be able to run a bash script on container 2.
One possibility as far as I can see is to make them communicate over HTTP via an API. But then I would need to install a web server in container 2 and write an API which seems a bit overkill.
I just want to execute a bash script.
Any suggestions?
You have a few options, but the first 2 that come time mind are:
In container 1, install the Docker CLI and bind mount
/var/run/docker.sock (you need to specify the bind mount from the
host when you start the container). Then, inside the container, you
should be able to use docker commands against the bind mounted
socket as if you were executing them from the host (you might also
need to chmod the socket inside the container to allow a non-root
user to do this.
You could install SSHD on container 2, and then ssh in from container 1 and run your script. The advantage here is that you don't need to make any changes inside the containers to account for the fact that they are running in Docker and not bare metal. The down side is that you will need to add the SSHD setup to your Dockerfile or the startup scripts.
Most of the other ideas I can think of are just variants of option (2), with SSHD replaced by some other tool.
Also be aware that Docker networking is a little strange (at least on Mac hosts), so you need to make sure that the containers are using the same docker-network and are able to communicate over it.
Warning:
To be completely clear, do not use option 1 outside of a lab or very controlled dev environment. It is taking a secure socket that has full authority over the Docker runtime on the host, and granting unchecked access to it from a container. Doing that makes it trivially easy to break out of the Docker sandbox and compromise the host system. About the only place I would consider it acceptable is as part of a full stack integration test setup that will only be run adhoc by a developer. It's a hack that can be a useful shortcut in some very specific situations but the drawbacks cannot be overstated.
I wrote a python package especially for this use-case.
Flask-Shell2HTTP is a Flask-extension to convert a command line tool into a RESTful API with mere 5 lines of code.
Example Code:
from flask import Flask
from flask_executor import Executor
from flask_shell2http import Shell2HTTP
app = Flask(__name__)
executor = Executor(app)
shell2http = Shell2HTTP(app=app, executor=executor, base_url_prefix="/commands/")
shell2http.register_command(endpoint="saythis", command_name="echo")
shell2http.register_command(endpoint="run", command_name="./myscript")
can be called easily like,
$ curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"args": ["Hello", "World!"]}' http://localhost:4000/commands/saythis
You can use this to create RESTful micro-services that can execute pre-defined shell commands/scripts with dynamic arguments asynchronously and fetch result.
It supports file upload, callback fn, reactive programming and more. I recommend you to checkout the Examples.
Running a docker command from a container is not straightforward and not really a good idea (in my opinion), because :
You'll need to install docker on the container (and do docker in docker stuff)
You'll need to share the unix socket, which is not a good thing if you have no idea of what you're doing.
So, this leaves us two solutions :
Install ssh on you're container and execute the command through ssh
Share a volume and have a process that watch for something to trigger your batch
It was mentioned here before, but a reasonable, semi-hacky option is to install SSH in both containers and then use ssh to execute commands on the other container:
# install SSH, if you don't have it already
sudo apt install openssh-server
# start the ssh service
sudo service start ssh
# start the daemon
sudo /usr/sbin/sshd -D &
Assuming you don't want to always be root, you can add default user (in this case, 'foobob'):
useradd -m --no-log-init --system --uid 1000 foobob -s /bin/bash -g sudo -G root
#change password
echo 'foobob:foobob' | chpasswd
Do this on both the source and target containers. Now you can execute a command from container_1 to container_2.
# obtain container-id of target container using 'docker ps'
ssh foobob#<container-id> << "EOL"
echo 'hello bob from container 1' > message.txt
EOL
You can automate the password with ssh-agent, or you can use some bit of more hacky with sshpass (install it first using sudo apt install sshpass):
sshpass -p 'foobob' ssh foobob#<container-id>
I believe
docker exec -it <container_name> <command>
should work, even inside the container.
You could also try to mount to docker.sock in the container you try to execute the command from:
docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock ...
Is there a way to authenticate the host os users from docker container ?
Bind mapping the passwd , shadow and pam.d file make it work.
for example :
-v /etc/pam.d:/etc/pam.d
-v /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd
-v /etc/shadow:/etc/shadow
But is there any other feature / way in Docker which makes this possible without doing bind mapping?
Anyone who can run Docker commands is root, so it doesn't matter. As a corollary, if you need to make decisions based on the calling host user, you almost certainly don't want your tool packaged in a Docker image.
Put another way: if I can use docker run -v to bind-mount the host's /etc/shadow into a container for authentication purposes, then I can also docker run -u root -v /:/host ubuntu sh and make whatever changes I want to /host/etc/passwd, steal and decrypt the root password from /host/etc/shadow, add myself to /host/etc/sudoers, and so on.
The Problem:
Let's say you need to be able to create containers in your host from inside a container, Why?!!! Imagine you have your "continuous everything" process automated in a Jenkins Pipeline and this process includes creation of container or services for testing.
Even Though container and virtual machines enforces isolation from the host, this is a valid scenario.
The solution:
Sorry WinTel guys, did you expect this answer includes Windows?... Well just a clue, you can enable tcp://localhost:2375
Coming back to production grade answer, follow the next steps:
Spin up your instance binding "/var/run/docker.sock" from your host to your container:
docker container run --name container -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock image
docker.sock as any file exposes its user id and group id, any user having as group "docker" is allowed to "talk" with docker using the client, so run the following script:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
DOCKER_SOCKET=/var/run/docker.sock
DOCKER_GROUP=docker
if [ -S ${DOCKER_SOCKET} ]; then
DOCKER_GID=$(stat -c '%g' ${DOCKER_SOCKET})
groupadd -for -g ${DOCKER_GID} ${DOCKER_GROUP}
usermod -aG ${DOCKER_GROUP} youruser
fi
Don't freak out, this won't harm your system, basically, if the file (socket)
docker.sock exists (as it should), the script will get it group id, will create a group call
docker and will set the same group id as the docker's group one in the host
(confused?!?!, remember that we are inside the container we want to have access
to host docker, we executed "docker container exec -it -u root container bash"
in order to access the container), then, the user called "youruser" will be
modified by being added to "docker" group.
(Almost there!!!) Install docker client inside your container, use your
favorite package manager and install the docker client, I have the same version
of client and server and works like a charm but I suppose I could work with
other versions but come on!! mixing versions??? seriously???
After following these steps, you will be able to run docker commands using the common process, just remember that it is possible to do anything!!! even shooting you in the foot!!!
If I have a docker container that I started a while back, what is the best way to set an environment variable in that running container? I set an environment variable initially when I ran the run command.
$ docker run --name my-wordpress -e VIRTUAL_HOST=domain.example --link my-mysql:mysql -d spencercooley/wordpress
but now that it has been running for a while I want to add another VIRTUAL_HOST to the environment variable. I do not want to delete the container and then just re-run it with the environment variable that I want because then I would have to migrate the old volumes to the new container, it has theme files and uploads in it that I don't want to lose.
I would just like to change the value of VIRTUAL_HOST environment variable.
There are generaly two options, because docker doesn't support this feature now:
Create your own script, which will act like runner for your command. For example:
#!/bin/bash
export VAR1=VAL1
export VAR2=VAL2
your_cmd
Run your command following way:
docker exec -i CONTAINER_ID /bin/bash -c "export VAR1=VAL1 && export VAR2=VAL2 && your_cmd"
Docker doesn't offer this feature.
There is an issue: "How to set an enviroment variable on an existing container? #8838"
Also from "Allow docker start to take environment variables #7561":
Right now Docker can't change the configuration of the container once it's created, and generally this is OK because it's trivial to create a new container.
For a somewhat narrow use case, docker issue 8838 mentions this sort-of-hack:
You just stop docker daemon and change container config in /var/lib/docker/containers/[container-id]/config.json (sic)
This solution updates the environment variables without the need to delete and re-run the container, having to migrate volumes and remembering parameters to run.
However, this requires a restart of the docker daemon. And, until issue issue 2658 is addressed, this includes a restart of all containers.
To:
set up many env. vars in one step,
prevent exposing them in 'sh' history, like with '-e' option (passing credentials/api tokens!),
you can use
--env-file key_value_file.txt
option:
docker run --env-file key_value_file.txt $INSTANCE_ID
Here's how you can modify a running container to update its environment variables. This assumes you're running on Linux. I tested it with Docker 19.03.8
Live Restore
First, ensure that your Docker daemon is set to leave containers running when it's shut down. Edit your /etc/docker/daemon.json, and add "live-restore": true as a top-level key.
sudo vim /etc/docker/daemon.json
My file looks like this:
{
"default-runtime": "nvidia",
"runtimes": {
"nvidia": {
"path": "nvidia-container-runtime",
"runtimeArgs": []
}
},
"live-restore": true
}
Taken from here.
Get the Container ID
Save the ID of the container you want to edit for easier access to the files.
export CONTAINER_ID=`docker inspect --format="{{.Id}}" <YOUR CONTAINER NAME>`
Edit Container Configuration
Edit the configuration file, go to the "Env" section, and add your key.
sudo vim /var/lib/docker/containers/$CONTAINER_ID/config.v2.json
My file looks like this:
...,"Env":["TEST=1",...
Stop and Start Docker
I found that restarting Docker didn't work, I had to stop and then start Docker with two separate commands.
sudo systemctl stop docker
sudo systemctl start docker
Because of live-restore, your containers should stay up.
Verify That It Worked
docker exec <YOUR CONTAINER NAME> bash -c 'echo $TEST'
Single quotes are important here.
You can also verify that the uptime of your container hasn't changed:
docker ps
You wrote that you do not want to migrate the old volumes. So I assume either the Dockerfile that you used to build the spencercooley/wordpress image has VOLUMEs defined or you specified them on command line with the -v switch.
You could simply start a new container which imports the volumes from the old one with the --volumes-from switch like:
$ docker run --name my-new-wordpress --volumes-from my-wordpress -e VIRTUAL_HOST=domain.com --link my-mysql:mysql -d spencercooley/wordpres
So you will have a fresh container but you do not loose the old data. You do not even need to touch or migrate it.
A well-done container is always stateless. That means its process is supposed to add or modify only files on defined volumes. That can be verified with a simple docker diff <containerId> after the container ran a while.
In that case it is not dangerous when you re-create the container with the same parameters (in your case slightly modified ones). Assuming you create it from exactly the same image from which the old one was created and you re-use the same volumes with the above mentioned switch.
After the new container has started successfully and you verified that everything runs correctly you can delete the old wordpress container. The old volumes are then referred from the new container and will not be deleted.
If you are running the container as a service using docker swarm, you can do:
docker service update --env-add <you environment variable> <service_name>
Also remove using --env-rm
To make sure it's addedd as you wanted, just run:
docker exec -it <container id> env
1. Enter your running container:
sudo docker exec -it <container_name> /bin/bash
2. Run command to all available to user accessing the container and copy them to user running session that needs to run the commands:
printenv | grep -v "no_proxy" >> /etc/environment
3. Stop and Start the container
sudo docker stop <container_name>
sudo docker start <container_name>
Firstly you can set env inside the container the same way as you do on a linux box.
Secondly, you can do it by modifying the config file of your docker container (/var/lib/docker/containers/xxxx/config.v2.json). Note you need restart docker service to take affect. This way you can change some other things like port mapping etc.
here is how to update a docker container config permanently
stop container: docker stop <container name>
edit container config: docker run -it -v /var/lib/docker:/var/lib/docker alpine vi $(docker inspect --format='/var/lib/docker/containers/{{.Id}}/config.v2.json' <container name>)
restart docker
I solve this problem with docker commit after some modifications in the base container, we only need to tag the new image and start that one
docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/commit
docker commit [container-id] [tag]
docker commit b0e71de98cb9 stack-overflow:0.0.1
then you can pass environment vars or file
docker run --env AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID --env AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY --env AWS_SESSION_TOKEN --env-file env.local -p 8093:8093 stack-overflow:0.0.1
the quick working hack would be:
get into the running container.
docker exec -it <container_name> bash
set env variable,
install vim if not installed in the container
apt-get install vim
vi ~/.profile at the end of the file add export MAPPING_FILENAME=p_07302021
source ~/.profile
check whether it has been set! echo $MAPPING_FILENAME(make sure you should come out of the container.)
Now, you can run whatever you're running outside of the container from inside the container.
Note, in case you're worried that you might lose your work if the current session you logged in gets logged off. you can always use screen even before starting step 1. That way if you logged off by chance of your inside running container session, you can log back in.
After understand that docker run an image constructed with a dockerfile , and the only way to change it is build another image stop everything and run everything again .
So the easy way to "set an environment variable in a running docker container" is read dockerfile [1] (with docker inspect) understand how docker starts [1].
In the example [1] we can see that docker start with /usr/local/bin/docker-php-entrypoint and we could edit it with vi and add one line with export myvar=myvalue since /usr/local/bin/docker-php-entrypoint Posix script .
If you can change dockerfile, you can add a call to a script [2] for example /usr/local/bin/mystart.sh and in that file we can set your environment var.
Of course after change the scripts you need restart the container [3]
[1]
$ docker inspect 011aa33ba92b
[{
. . .
"ContainerConfig": {
"Cmd": [
"php-fpm"
],
"WorkingDir": "/app",
"Entrypoint": [
"docker-php-entrypoint"
],
. . .
}]
[2]
/usr/local/bin/mystart.sh
#!/bin/bash
export VAR1=VAL1
export VAR2=VAL2
your_cmd
[3]
docker restart dev-php (container name)
Hack with editing docker inner configs and then restarting docker daemon was unsuitable for my case.
There is a way to recreate container with new environment settings and use it for some time.
1. Create new image from runnning container:
docker commit my-service
a1b2c3d4e5f6032165497
Docker created new image, and answered with its id. Note, the image doesn't include mounts and networks.
2. Stop and rename original container:
docker stop my-service
docker rename my-service my-service-original
3. Create and start new container with modified environment:
docker run \
-it --rm \
--name my-service \
--network=required-network \
--mount type=bind,source=/host/path,target=/inside/path,readonly \
--env 'MY_NEW_ENV_VAR=blablabla OLD_ENV=zzz' \
a1b2c3d4e5f6032165497
Here, I did the following:
created new temporary container from image built on step 1, that will show its output on terminal, will exit on Ctrl+C, and will be deleted after that
configured its mounts and networks
added my custom environment configuration
4. After you worked with temporary container, press Ctrl+C to stop and remove it, and then return old container back:
docker rename my-service-original my-service
docker start my-service
How to set environment variable in a running docker container as a development environment
Basically you can do like in normal linux, adding export MY_VAR="value" to ~/.bashrc file.
Instructions
Using VScode attach to your running container
Then with VScode open the ~/.bashrc file
Export your variable by adding the code in the end of the file
export MY_VAR="value"
Finally execute .bashrc using source command
source ~/.bashrc
You could set an environment variable to a running Docker container by
docker exec -it -e "your environment Key"="your new value" <container> /bin/bash
Verify it using below command
printenv
This will update your key with the new value provided.
Note: This will get reverted back to old on if docker gets restarted.
Use export VAR=Value
Then type printenv in terminal to validate it is set correctly.