Docker diff isn't showing changes to new files - docker

Let's say I create a new ubuntu image, and add a file to the container, like so:
touch /file1
I run docker diff <container_id>, and I see that /file1 has been added to the system. Awesome. However, now when I do something like this:
echo "hello" > /file1
I do not see that change when I run docker diff again. However, if I create a file under say, /etc, docker diff will show that /etc has changed, and that /etc/new_file has been added (so I know docker diff can show changed files).
Does anyone know of a way to show changes to files that are added to the container during runtime?

You can have a look here: https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/29328,
As in the post above, docker diff compares differences in the container's rootfs from the image.
The image will only know a file is added and will not have any concept of what happened inside the file.

Related

Provide GitHub file as default conf file in a docker-compose volume

So my question is whether it is possible to have a volume like:
"${my_conf_file}:-raw.my/GitHub/file.git":/conf.json
So this would be my goal, however I do not find anything related to this. In the end if the user has a file, the file should be passed, otherwise either conf.json should not be replaced by anything (because the GitHub file is already there, to be replaced by a conf file that a user might have) or the file from GitHub should be passed again.
If it best to figure out the first part ("${my_conf_file}:-raw.my/GitHub/file.git") ahead of the docker run.
In your start script (which calls docker run or uses your docker-compose.yml), add a script able to determine which config file you want (the user's, conf.json itself or the one from GitHub)
Once you can script that, then you can add your docker run -v call, which will mount the right file to :/conf.json in the container.

How do I save changes to a docker container and image

I ran a container and it was missing command alias like ll. So I Typed alias ll="ls -lta" in the terminal while I was inside the container. After that, I ran docker commit to commit changes to the container and image. I got a new image (outside container), deleted the old image and ran a new container from the image I committed to. But was not able to use ll alias. What am I missing here?
Container state is only persisted through files.
alias ll="ls -lts" made no file changes and thus no state change was persisted by the docker commit....
You may achieve the result you intend by editing one of the files that the shell uses to define its state when opened, e.g. e.g. ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile. You'll need to determine which to use for your environment|OS.

Modifying volume data inherited from parent image

Say there is an image A described by the following Dockerfile:
FROM bash
RUN mkdir "/data" && echo "FOO" > "/data/test"
VOLUME "/data"
I want to specify an image B that inherites from A and modifies /data/test. I don't want to mount the volume, I want it to have some default data I specify in B:
FROM A
RUN echo "BAR" > "/data/test"
The thing is that the test file will maintain the content it had at the moment of VOLUME instruction in A Dockerfile. B image test file will contain FOO instead of BAR as I would expect.
The following Dockerfile demonstrates the behavior:
FROM bash
# overwriting volume file
RUN mkdir "/volume-data" && echo "FOO" > "/volume-data/test"
VOLUME "/volume-data"
RUN echo "BAR" > "/volume-data/test"
RUN cat "/volume-data/test" # prints "FOO"
# overwriting non-volume file
RUN mkdir "/regular-data" && echo "FOO" > "/regular-data/test"
RUN echo "BAR" > "/regular-data/test"
RUN cat "/regular-data/test" # prints "BAR"
Building the Dockerfile will print FOO and BAR.
Is it possible to modify file /data/test in B Dockerfile?
It seems that this is intended behavior.
Changing the volume from within the Dockerfile: If any build steps change the data within the volume after it has been declared, those changes will be discarded.
VOLUMEs are not part of your IMAGE. So what is the use case to seed data into it. When you push the image into another location, it is using an empty volume at start. The dockerfile behaviour does remind you of that.
So basically, if you want to keep the data along with the app code, you should not use VOLUMEs. If the volume declaration did exist in the parent image then you need to remove the volume before starting your own image build. (docker-copyedit).
There are a few non-obvious ways to do this, and all of them have their obvious flaws.
Hijack the parent docker file
Perhaps the simplest, but least reusable way, is to simply use the parent Dockerfile and modify that. A quick Google of docker <image-name:version> source should find the github hosting the parent image Dockerfile. This is good for optimizing the final image, but destroyes the point of using layers.
Use an on start script
While a Dockerfile can't make further modifications to a volume, a running container can. Add a script to the image, and change the Entrypoint to call that (and have that script call the original entry point). This is what you will HAVE to do if you are using a singleton-type container, and need to partially 'reset' a volume on start up. Of course, since volumes are persisted outside the container, just remember that 1) your changes may already be made, and 2) Another container started at the same time may already be making those changes.
Since volumes are (virtually) forever, I just use one time setup scripts after starting the containers for the first time. That way I easily control when the default data is setup/reset. (You can use docker inspect <volume-name> to get the host location of the volume if you need to)
The common middle ground on this one seems to be to have a one-off image whose only purpose is to run once to do the volume configurations, and then clean it up.
Bind to a new volume
Copy the contents of the old volume to a new one, and configure everything to use the new volume instead.
And finally... reconsider if Docker is right for you
You probably already wasted more time on this than it was worth. (In my experience, the maintenance pain of Docker has always far outweighed the benefits. However, Docker is a tool, and with any tool, you need to sometimes take a moment to reflect if you are using it right, and if there are better tools for the job.)

How can I edit an existing docker image metadata?

I would like to edit a docker images metadata for the following reasons:
I don't like an image parents EXPOSE, VOLUME etc declaration (see #3465, Docker-Team did not want to provide a solution), so I'd like to "un-volume" or "un-expose" the image.
I dont't like an image ContainerConfig (see docker inspect [image]) cause it was generated from a running container using docker commit [container]
Fix error durring docker build or docker run like:
cannot mount volume over existing file, file exists [path]
Is there any way I can do that?
Its a bit hacky, but works:
Save the image to a tar.gz file:
$ docker save [image] > [targetfile.tar.gz]
Extract the tar file to get access to the raw image data:
tar -xvzf [targetfile.tar.gz]
Lookup the image metadata file in the manifest.json file: There should be a key like .Config which contains a [HEX] number. There should be an exact [HEX].json in the root of the extracted folder.
This is the file containing the image metadata. Edit as you like.
Pack the extracted files back into an new.tar.gz-archive
Use cat [new.tar.gz] | docker load to re-import the modified image
Use docker inspect [image] to verify your metadata changes have been applied
EDIT:
This has been wrapped into a handy script: https://github.com/gdraheim/docker-copyedit
I had come across the same workaround - since I have to edit the metadata of some images quite often (fixing an automated image rebuild from a third party), I have create a little script to help with the steps of save/unpack/edit/load.
Have a look at docker-copyedit. It can remove or overrides volumes as well as set other metadata values like entrypoint and cmd.

docker-compose caches run results

I'm having an issue with docker-compose where I'm passing a file into the container when it's run. The issue is that it doesn't seem to recognize when the file has been changed and serves the saved result back indefinitely until I change the name of the file.
An example (modified names for brevity):
jono#macbook:~/myProj% docker-compose run vpn conf.opvn
Options error: Unrecognized option or missing parameter(s) in conf.opvn:71: AXswRE+
5aN64mYiPSatOACC6+bISv8RcDPX/lMYdLwe8zQY6qWtbrjFXrp2 (2.3.8)
Then I change the file, save it, and run the command again - exact same output.
Then without changing anything I do this:
jono#macbook:~/myProj% cp conf.opvn newconf.opvn
And when I run $ docker-compose run vpn newconf.opvn it works. Seems really silly.
I'm working with Tmux and Mac if there is some way that affects it. Is this the expected behaviour? I couldn't find anything documenting this on the docker-compose homepage.
EDIT:
Specifically I'm using this repo from the amazing Jess.
The image you are using is using volume in order to mount your current directory. Basically the file conf.opvn is copied to the docker container.
When you change the file, the container doesn't see that change, but it does pick up the rename (which the container sees as a new file). This most probably is due to user rights of the file and the user rights of the folder in the docker container where this file is mounted. Try changing the file's permissions to 777 before beginning the process and check again.
You can find a discussion about this in the official forum of docker

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