Can't find Docker data volume on host - docker

I have CoreOS running inside a Vagrant box. My working directory is /home/core.
I then run docker run -p 8080:8080 -p 50000:50000 -v jenkins_home:/var/jenkins_home jenkins. The container starts without any problems.
Unfortunately I can't find the mounted volume inside my Vagrant box. I assumed it would be in /home/core/jenkins_home but it ain't there. /home/core/ is empty.
Where is this directory?

The advice to use an absolute host path for volumes is in the comments (hat tip #Hy L), but the question of where the data went with the relative path was still an open issue. I'm on WSL2 and I finally found my data at
/mnt/wsl/docker-desktop-data/data/docker
and I needed sudo to look inside the following directory to see data from my relative mount (pipeline_runs):
sudo ls volumes/pipeline_runs/_data
I don't have a full understanding but I take it that this is where the Hyper-V machine is storing its data, so when you specify a relative path, it's actually relative to a path on that (virtual) machine.

Related

docker run not syncing local folder in windows

I want to sync my local folder with that of a docker container. I am using a windows system with Wsl 2 backend. I tried running the following command as per the instructions of a docker course instructor but it didn't seem to have synced it:
docker run -v ${pwd}:\app:ro --env-file ./.env -d -p 3000:4000 --name node-app node-app-image
I faced a similar issue when I started syncing local folders with that of a docker container in my windows system. The solution was actually quite simple, instead of using -v ${pwd}:\app:ro in your first volume it should be -v ${pwd}:/app:ro. Notice the / instead of \. Since your docker container is a Linux container the path should have /.
As #Sysix pointed out, docker will always overwrite the folder in the container with the one on the host (no matter if it already existed or not). Only those files will be in that folder/volume that were created either on the host, or in the container during runtime.
Learn more about bind mounts and volumes here.

Save Docker container file to host filesystem

I have a Docker container that runs a Python app and generates a file as a result.
I would like to persist this file in my local file system and not to lose it at the end of the container's execution.
After reading other posts and documentation of volumes and data storage in Docker I have tried to solve it in different ways like:
Using a volume (created before):
docker run --name my_container -v my_volume:/container_file_path my_container
I'm missing something here because I understand that I'm not referencing the host's route at any time.
Or directly referencing host path and container path (with this option I also got some problems with absolute or relative paths usage):
docker run --name my_container -v host_path:container_file_path my_container
I also tried some other "variants" of the commands above (--mount instead of -v, changing target/source values, etc.) but I couldn't get it to work.
I'm using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which I've read may be the cause of the problem.
Could you guide me in what I am doing wrong? Thanks!
The second option with the bind-mount volume sounds good to me. You do need to use absolute paths, but you can use e.g. $(pwd) to make it simpler.

How to volume map a directory inside a volume mapped directory in a container?

I have a weird case where I need to map a directory inside a already mapped directory inside a container.
e.g. I already have a mapping - host/dir1:/app. Now I want to map host/wwwroot:/app/wwwroot. When I add another -v for host/wwwroot:/app/wwwroot, docker complains that the volume is already mapped.
Is there a way to get around that?
Ok this is a bit unorthodox but it worked (I am using an ubuntu image on the following example):
On your host run the following:
cd host/dir1
ln -s ../inside_mount wwwroot
docker run -it -v host/dir1:/app -v host/wwwroot:/inside_mount ubuntu
You are actually binding under different directories inside the container but the soft link creates the desired result.
On your host the soft link is dangling but inside the container it will point to the correct directory.

How to remove a mount for existing container?

I'm learning docker and reading their chapter "Manage data in containers". In the "Mount a host directory as a data volume". They mentioned the following paragraph:
In addition to creating a volume using the -v flag you can also mount a directory from your Docker engine’s host into a container.
$ docker run -d -P --name web -v /src/webapp:/opt/webapp training/webapp python app.py
This command mounts the host directory, /src/webapp, into the container at /opt/webapp. If the path /opt/webapp already exists inside the container’s image, the /src/webapp mount overlays but does not remove the pre-existing content. Once the mount is removed, the content is accessible again. This is consistent with the expected behavior of the mount command.
Experiment 1
Then when I tried to run this command and try to inspect the container, I found that that actually container doesn't even run. Then I use docker logs web and find this error:
can't open file 'app.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
I assume that the /src/webapp mount overlays on the /opt/webapp, which there is no content.
Question 1
How can I remove this mount and check if the content is still there as the quote said?
Experiment 2
When I tried to run
$ docker run -d -P --name web2 -v newvolume:/opt/webapp training/webapp python app.py
I found that the container ran correctly. Then I use docker exec -it web2 /bin/bash and find that all of the existing content are still inside the /opt/webapp. I can also add more files inside here. So in this case, it looks like that the volume is not overlay but combined. If I use docker inspect web and check Mounts, then I'll see that the volume is created under /var/lib/docker/volumes/newvolume/_data
Question 2
If I give a name instead of a host-dir absolute path, then the volume will not overlay the container-dir /opt/webapp but connect the two dir together?
An alternative solution is to commit the container (or export it) using docker cli and re-create it without doing the mapping.
Question 1 How can I remove this mount and check if the content is still there as the quote said?
You would create a new container without the volume mount. E.g.
$ docker run -d -P --name web training/webapp python app.py
(Theoretically it's possible to perform some privileged operations to remove the mount on a running container, but inside the container you will not normally have this permission, and it's a good practice to get into the habit of treating containers as ephemeral.)
Question 2 If I give a name instead of a host-dir absolute path, then the volume will not overlay the container-dir /opt/webapp but connect the two dir together?
Almost. What's happening with named volumes is that docker provides an initialization step when the volume is empty and the container is created with that volume mount. The initialization step copies the contents of the image at that directory into the volume, including all files and directories recursively, ownership, and permissions. This is very useful to running containers as a non-root user with a volume directory that the user inside the container needs to be able to write into. After that initialization has happened, future containers with the same named volume will skip the initialization, even if the image content has changed, e.g. if you add new content into the image.

How to write data to host file system from Docker container

I have a Docker container which is running some code and creating some HTML reports. I want these reports to be published into a specific directory on the host machine, i.e. at /usr/share/nginx/reports
The way I have gone about doing this is to mount this host directory as a data volume, i.e. docker run -v /usr/share/nginx/reports --name my-container com.containers/my-container
However, when I ssh into the host machine, and check the contents of the directory /usr/share/nginx/reports, I don't see any of the report data there.
Am I doing something wrong?
The host machine is an Ubuntu server, and the Docker container is also Ubuntu, no boot2docker weirdness going on here.
From "Managing data in containers", mounting a host folder to a container would be:
docker run -v /Users/<path>:/<container path>
(see "Use volume")
Using only -v /usr/share/nginx/reports would declare the internal container path /usr/share/nginx/reports as a volume, but would have nothing to do with the host folder.
This is one of the type of mounts available:
The answer to this question is problematic because it varies depending on your operating system and your full requirements. The answer by VonC makes some assumptions that should be addressed and is therefore only correct in some contexts. Other answers on this topic generally ignore the fact that some people are running linux, others windows, and still others are on OSX or other weird OS's.
As VonC mentioned in his answer, in a lot of cases it is possible to bind-mount a host directory straight into the container, using a -v host-path:container-path argument to the docker command (you can also use --volume for added readability or --mount for rocket-science).
One of the biggest problems (in 2020) is the use of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), where bind-mounting a host volume is fraught with error and may or may not work as expected depending on whether the path mounted is in the linux filesystem or the windows filesystem. VonC's answer was written before WSL became a big problem, but it still makes assumptions about the local filesystem being real rather than mounted into a virtual-machine of some kind.
I have found that a lot of engineers prefer to bypass this unnecessary confusion through the use of docker volumes. A docker volume can be created with the command:
docker volume create <name>
Listed with
docker volume ls
and removed with
docker volume rm <name>
You can mount this by specifying the name of the volume on the left-hand-side of the --volume argument. If your volume was called, for example, 'logs', you could use something like --volume logs:/usr/share/nginx/reports to bind it to the log dir you're interested in. You can view the contents of the directory with something like this:
docker run -it --rm --volume logs:/logs alpine ls -AlF /logs/
This should list the files in that directory. If you have a file called 'nginx.log' for example, you could view it like this:
docker run -it --rm --volume logs:/logs alpine less /logs/nginx.log
And the contents would be paged to your terminal.
You can bind this volume to multiple containers simultaneously if needed. This is useful if, for example, you're writing to your logs with one container, and paging them to a console with another.
If you want to copy the example log file from above into a tmp directory on your local filesystem you can achieve that with:
docker run -it --rm --volume logs:/logs --volume /tmp:/local_tmp alpine cp /logs/nginx.log /local_tmp/
I am using Docker toolbox on windows. I am Working on a Spring Boot Application using Docker. My application writes logs to
users/path/service.log
So when i started my application from host terminal the Log file was successfully updated.
But the same when i did on docker no file was created and neither updated.
So i changed my log file location to match with the Container's Directories
var/log/service.log
I started my container again and my file was updated again.
You can choose any location as long as it matches with the container Directory. Just bash into the container and see what suits you.
Next step is to copy log files from container to host.
So in order to copy those logs to your host. You can use one of two ways i know of-
1- use Volumes in docker
2- use following Docker command to copy file from docker container to host-:
docker cp <containerId>:/file/path/within/container /host/path/target
First, you need to create a directory where you want to share the data
mkdir -p /abc/def/
Now, you need to create a docker volume using the below command. As we see here, we are specifying device as '/abc/def/'
docker volume create --driver local \
--opt type=none \
--opt device=/abc/def/ \
--opt o=bind \
spark-volume
Now, start your container with below command..
docker run -d \
--mount type=volume,dst=/abc/def/,volume-driver=local,volume-opt=type=none,volume-opt=o=bind,volume-opt=device=/opt/spark/ \
--network host \
img:tag
Now, docker container will use /abc/def/ in local Filesystem as its storage and you will have all contents of /abc/def/ in docker container available in Local Filesystem
In your application, if you set a working directory for your php code (report path), the path must be the one on the container. Then docker will copie automaticly copy to your host directory. It wasn't docker mis-configuration, but my application that was writing to the wrong place. Weird at first, but did work in my case.

Resources