Docker Command Line

Note: if you are using a remote Docker daemon, such as Boot2Docker, then do not type the sudo before the docker commands shown in the documentation's examples.

To list available commands, either run docker with no parameters or execute docker help:

$ docker
  Usage: docker [OPTIONS] COMMAND [arg...]
    -H, --host=[]: The socket(s) to bind to in daemon mode, specified using one or more tcp://host:port, unix:///path/to/socket, fd://* or fd://socketfd.

  A self-sufficient runtime for Linux containers.

  ...

Depending on your Docker system configuration, you may be required to preface each docker command with sudo. To avoid having to use sudo with the docker command, your system administrator can create a Unix group called docker and add users to it.

For more information about installing Docker or sudo configuration, refer to the installation instructions for your operating system.

Environment variables

For easy reference, the following list of environment variables are supported by the docker command line:

  • DOCKER_CERT_PATH The location of your authentication keys.
  • DOCKER_DRIVER The graph driver to use.
  • DOCKER_HOST Daemon socket to connect to.
  • DOCKER_NOWARN_KERNEL_VERSION Prevent warnings that your Linux kernel is unsuitable for Docker.
  • DOCKER_RAMDISK If set this will disable ‘pivot_root’.
  • DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY When set Docker uses TLS and verifies the remote.
  • DOCKER_TMPDIR Location for temporary Docker files.

Because Docker is developed using ‘Go’, you can also use any environment variables used by the ‘Go’ runtime. In particular, you may find these useful:

  • HTTP_PROXY
  • HTTPS_PROXY
  • NO_PROXY

These Go environment variables are case-insensitive. See the Go specification for details on these variables.

Configuration files

The Docker command line stores its configuration files in a directory called .docker within your HOME directory. Docker manages most of the files in .docker and you should not modify them. However, you can modify the .docker/config.json file to control certain aspects of how the docker command behaves.

Currently, you can modify the docker command behavior using environment variables or command-line options. You can also use options within config.json to modify some of the same behavior. When using these mechanisms, you must keep in mind the order of precedence among them. Command line options override environment variables and environment variables override properties you specify in a config.json file.

The config.json file stores a JSON encoding of a single HttpHeaders property. The property specifies a set of headers to include in all messages sent from the Docker client to the daemon. Docker does not try to interpret or understand these header; it simply puts them into the messages. Docker does not allow these headers to change any headers it sets for itself.

Following is a sample config.json file:

{
  "HttpHeaders: {
    "MyHeader": "MyValue"
  }
}

Help

To list the help on any command just execute the command, followed by the --help option.

$ docker run --help

Usage: docker run [OPTIONS] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]

Run a command in a new container

  -a, --attach=[]            Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR
  -c, --cpu-shares=0         CPU shares (relative weight)
...

Option types

Single character command line options can be combined, so rather than typing docker run -i -t --name test busybox sh, you can write docker run -it --name test busybox sh.

Boolean

Boolean options take the form -d=false. The value you see in the help text is the default value which is set if you do not specify that flag. If you specify a Boolean flag without a value, this will set the flag to true, irrespective of the default value.

For example, running docker run -d will set the value to true, so your container will run in “detached” mode, in the background.

Options which default to true (e.g., docker build --rm=true) can only be set to the non-default value by explicitly setting them to false:

$ docker build --rm=false .

Multi

You can specify options like -a=[] multiple times in a single command line, for example in these commands:

$ docker run -a stdin -a stdout -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash
$ docker run -a stdin -a stdout -a stderr ubuntu /bin/ls

Sometimes, multiple options can call for a more complex value string as for -v:

$ docker run -v /host:/container example/mysql

Note: Do not use the -t and -a stderr options together due to limitations in the pty implementation. All stderr in pty mode simply goes to stdout.

Strings and Integers

Options like --name="" expect a string, and they can only be specified once. Options like -c=0 expect an integer, and they can only be specified once.

daemon

Usage: docker [OPTIONS] COMMAND [arg...]

A self-sufficient runtime for linux containers.

Options:
  --api-cors-header=""                   Set CORS headers in the remote API
  -b, --bridge=""                        Attach containers to a network bridge
  --bip=""                               Specify network bridge IP
  -D, --debug=false                      Enable debug mode
  -d, --daemon=false                     Enable daemon mode
  --default-gateway=""                   Container default gateway IPv4 address
  --default-gateway-v6=""                Container default gateway IPv6 address
  --dns=[]                               DNS server to use
  --dns-search=[]                        DNS search domains to use
  --default-ulimit=[]                    Set default ulimit settings for containers
  -e, --exec-driver="native"             Exec driver to use
  --exec-opt=[]                          Set exec driver options
  --exec-root="/var/run/docker"          Root of the Docker execdriver
  --fixed-cidr=""                        IPv4 subnet for fixed IPs
  --fixed-cidr-v6=""                     IPv6 subnet for fixed IPs
  -G, --group="docker"                   Group for the unix socket
  -g, --graph="/var/lib/docker"          Root of the Docker runtime
  -H, --host=[]                          Daemon socket(s) to connect to
  -h, --help=false                       Print usage
  --icc=true                             Enable inter-container communication
  --insecure-registry=[]                 Enable insecure registry communication
  --ip=0.0.0.0                           Default IP when binding container ports
  --ip-forward=true                      Enable net.ipv4.ip_forward
  --ip-masq=true                         Enable IP masquerading
  --iptables=true                        Enable addition of iptables rules
  --ipv6=false                           Enable IPv6 networking
  -l, --log-level="info"                 Set the logging level
  --label=[]                             Set key=value labels to the daemon
  --log-driver="json-file"               Default driver for container logs
  --log-opt=[]                           Log driver specific options
  --mtu=0                                Set the containers network MTU
  -p, --pidfile="/var/run/docker.pid"    Path to use for daemon PID file
  --registry-mirror=[]                   Preferred Docker registry mirror
  -s, --storage-driver=""                Storage driver to use
  --selinux-enabled=false                Enable selinux support
  --storage-opt=[]                       Set storage driver options
  --tls=false                            Use TLS; implied by --tlsverify
  --tlscacert="~/.docker/ca.pem"         Trust certs signed only by this CA
  --tlscert="~/.docker/cert.pem"         Path to TLS certificate file
  --tlskey="~/.docker/key.pem"           Path to TLS key file
  --tlsverify=false                      Use TLS and verify the remote
  --userland-proxy=true                  Use userland proxy for loopback traffic
  -v, --version=false                    Print version information and quit

Options with [] may be specified multiple times.

The Docker daemon is the persistent process that manages containers. Docker uses the same binary for both the daemon and client. To run the daemon you provide the -d flag.

To run the daemon with debug output, use docker -d -D.

Daemon socket option

The Docker daemon can listen for Docker Remote API requests via three different types of Socket: unix, tcp, and fd.

By default, a unix domain socket (or IPC socket) is created at /var/run/docker.sock, requiring either root permission, or docker group membership.

If you need to access the Docker daemon remotely, you need to enable the tcp Socket. Beware that the default setup provides un-encrypted and un-authenticated direct access to the Docker daemon - and should be secured either using the built in HTTPS encrypted socket, or by putting a secure web proxy in front of it. You can listen on port 2375 on all network interfaces with -H tcp://0.0.0.0:2375, or on a particular network interface using its IP address: -H tcp://192.168.59.103:2375. It is conventional to use port 2375 for un-encrypted, and port 2376 for encrypted communication with the daemon.

Note If you're using an HTTPS encrypted socket, keep in mind that only TLS1.0 and greater are supported. Protocols SSLv3 and under are not supported anymore for security reasons.

On Systemd based systems, you can communicate with the daemon via Systemd socket activation, use docker -d -H fd://. Using fd:// will work perfectly for most setups but you can also specify individual sockets: docker -d -H fd://3. If the specified socket activated files aren't found, then Docker will exit. You can find examples of using Systemd socket activation with Docker and Systemd in the Docker source tree.

You can configure the Docker daemon to listen to multiple sockets at the same time using multiple -H options:

# listen using the default unix socket, and on 2 specific IP addresses on this host.
docker -d -H unix:///var/run/docker.sock -H tcp://192.168.59.106 -H tcp://10.10.10.2

The Docker client will honor the DOCKER_HOST environment variable to set the -H flag for the client.

$ docker -H tcp://0.0.0.0:2375 ps
# or
$ export DOCKER_HOST="tcp://0.0.0.0:2375"
$ docker ps
# both are equal

Setting the DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY environment variable to any value other than the empty string is equivalent to setting the --tlsverify flag. The following are equivalent:

$ docker --tlsverify ps
# or
$ export DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY=1
$ docker ps

The Docker client will honor the HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, and NO_PROXY environment variables (or the lowercase versions thereof). HTTPS_PROXY takes precedence over HTTP_PROXY.

Daemon storage-driver option

The Docker daemon has support for several different image layer storage drivers: aufs, devicemapper, btrfs, zfs and overlay.

The aufs driver is the oldest, but is based on a Linux kernel patch-set that is unlikely to be merged into the main kernel. These are also known to cause some serious kernel crashes. However, aufs is also the only storage driver that allows containers to share executable and shared library memory, so is a useful choice when running thousands of containers with the same program or libraries.

The devicemapper driver uses thin provisioning and Copy on Write (CoW) snapshots. For each devicemapper graph location – typically /var/lib/docker/devicemapper – a thin pool is created based on two block devices, one for data and one for metadata. By default, these block devices are created automatically by using loopback mounts of automatically created sparse files. Refer to Storage driver options below for a way how to customize this setup. ~jpetazzo/Resizing Docker containers with the Device Mapper plugin article explains how to tune your existing setup without the use of options.

The btrfs driver is very fast for docker build - but like devicemapper does not share executable memory between devices. Use docker -d -s btrfs -g /mnt/btrfs_partition.

The zfs driver is probably not fast as btrfs but has a longer track record on stability. Thanks to Single Copy ARC shared blocks between clones will be cached only once. Use docker -d -s zfs. To select a different zfs filesystem set zfs.fsname option as described in Storage driver options:

The overlay is a very fast union filesystem. It is now merged in the main Linux kernel as of 3.18.0. Call docker -d -s overlay to use it.

Note: As promising as overlay is, the feature is still quite young and should not be used in production. Most notably, using overlay can cause excessive inode consumption (especially as the number of images grows), as well as being incompatible with the use of RPMs.

Note: As promising as overlay is, the feature is still quite young and should not be used in production. Most notably, using overlay can cause excessive inode consumption (especially as the number of images grows), as well as being incompatible with the use of RPMs.

Note: It is currently unsupported on btrfs or any Copy on Write filesystem and should only be used over ext4 partitions.

Storage driver options

Particular storage-driver can be configured with options specified with --storage-opt flags. Options for devicemapper are prefixed with dm and options for zfs start with zfs.

Currently supported options of devicemapper:

  • dm.basesize

    Specifies the size to use when creating the base device, which limits the size of images and containers. The default value is 10G. Note, thin devices are inherently “sparse”, so a 10G device which is mostly empty doesn't use 10 GB of space on the pool. However, the filesystem will use more space for the empty case the larger the device is.

    Warning: This value affects the system-wide “base” empty filesystem that may already be initialized and inherited by pulled images. Typically, a change to this value will require additional steps to take effect:

    $ sudo service docker stop
    $ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/docker
    $ sudo service docker start
    

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.basesize=20G
    
  • dm.loopdatasize

    Specifies the size to use when creating the loopback file for the “data” device which is used for the thin pool. The default size is 100G. Note that the file is sparse, so it will not initially take up this much space.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.loopdatasize=200G
    
  • dm.loopmetadatasize

    Specifies the size to use when creating the loopback file for the “metadata” device which is used for the thin pool. The default size is 2G. Note that the file is sparse, so it will not initially take up this much space.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.loopmetadatasize=4G
    
  • dm.fs

    Specifies the filesystem type to use for the base device. The supported options are “ext4” and “xfs”. The default is “ext4”

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.fs=xfs
    
  • dm.mkfsarg

    Specifies extra mkfs arguments to be used when creating the base device.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt "dm.mkfsarg=-O ^has_journal"
    
  • dm.mountopt

    Specifies extra mount options used when mounting the thin devices.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.mountopt=nodiscard
    
  • dm.datadev

    Specifies a custom blockdevice to use for data for the thin pool.

    If using a block device for device mapper storage, ideally both datadev and metadatadev should be specified to completely avoid using the loopback device.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d \
        --storage-opt dm.datadev=/dev/sdb1 \
        --storage-opt dm.metadatadev=/dev/sdc1
    
  • dm.metadatadev

    Specifies a custom blockdevice to use for metadata for the thin pool.

    For best performance the metadata should be on a different spindle than the data, or even better on an SSD.

    If setting up a new metadata pool it is required to be valid. This can be achieved by zeroing the first 4k to indicate empty metadata, like this:

    $ dd if=/dev/zero of=$metadata_dev bs=4096 count=1
    

    Example use:

    $ docker -d \
        --storage-opt dm.datadev=/dev/sdb1 \
        --storage-opt dm.metadatadev=/dev/sdc1
    
  • dm.blocksize

    Specifies a custom blocksize to use for the thin pool. The default blocksize is 64K.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.blocksize=512K
    
  • dm.blkdiscard

    Enables or disables the use of blkdiscard when removing devicemapper devices. This is enabled by default (only) if using loopback devices and is required to resparsify the loopback file on image/container removal.

    Disabling this on loopback can lead to much faster container removal times, but will make the space used in /var/lib/docker directory not be returned to the system for other use when containers are removed.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.blkdiscard=false
    
  • dm.override_udev_sync_check

    Overrides the udev synchronization checks between devicemapper and udev. udev is the device manager for the Linux kernel.

    To view the udev sync support of a Docker daemon that is using the devicemapper driver, run:

    $ docker info
    

    [...] Udev Sync Supported: true [...]

    When udev sync support is true, then devicemapper and udev can coordinate the activation and deactivation of devices for containers.

    When udev sync support is false, a race condition occurs between thedevicemapper and udev during create and cleanup. The race condition results in errors and failures. (For information on these failures, see docker#4036)

    To allow the docker daemon to start, regardless of udev sync not being supported, set dm.override_udev_sync_check to true:

    $ docker -d --storage-opt dm.override_udev_sync_check=true
    

    When this value is true, the devicemapper continues and simply warns you the errors are happening.

    Note: The ideal is to pursue a docker daemon and environment that does support synchronizing with udev. For further discussion on this topic, see docker#4036. Otherwise, set this flag for migrating existing Docker daemons to a daemon with a supported environment.

Docker execdriver option

Currently supported options of zfs:

  • zfs.fsname

    Set zfs filesystem under which docker will create its own datasets. By default docker will pick up the zfs filesystem where docker graph (/var/lib/docker) is located.

    Example use:

    $ docker -d -s zfs --storage-opt zfs.fsname=zroot/docker
    

The Docker daemon uses a specifically built libcontainer execution driver as its interface to the Linux kernel namespaces, cgroups, and SELinux.

There is still legacy support for the original LXC userspace tools via the lxc execution driver, however, this is not where the primary development of new functionality is taking place. Add -e lxc to the daemon flags to use the lxc execution driver.

Options for the native execdriver

You can configure the native (libcontainer) execdriver using options specified with the --exec-opt flag. All the flag's options have the native prefix. A single native.cgroupdriver option is available.

The native.cgroupdriver option specifies the management of the container's cgroups. You can specify cgroupfs or systemd. If you specify systemd and it is not available, the system uses cgroupfs. By default, if no option is specified, the execdriver first tries systemd and falls back to cgroupfs. This example sets the execdriver to cgroupfs:

$ sudo docker -d --exec-opt native.cgroupdriver=cgroupfs

Setting this option applies to all containers the daemon launches.

Daemon DNS options

To set the DNS server for all Docker containers, use docker -d --dns 8.8.8.8.

To set the DNS search domain for all Docker containers, use docker -d --dns-search example.com.

Insecure registries

Docker considers a private registry either secure or insecure. In the rest of this section, registry is used for private registry, and myregistry:5000 is a placeholder example for a private registry.

A secure registry uses TLS and a copy of its CA certificate is placed on the Docker host at /etc/docker/certs.d/myregistry:5000/ca.crt. An insecure registry is either not using TLS (i.e., listening on plain text HTTP), or is using TLS with a CA certificate not known by the Docker daemon. The latter can happen when the certificate was not found under /etc/docker/certs.d/myregistry:5000/, or if the certificate verification failed (i.e., wrong CA).

By default, Docker assumes all, but local (see local registries below), registries are secure. Communicating with an insecure registry is not possible if Docker assumes that registry is secure. In order to communicate with an insecure registry, the Docker daemon requires --insecure-registry in one of the following two forms:

  • --insecure-registry myregistry:5000 tells the Docker daemon that myregistry:5000 should be considered insecure.
  • --insecure-registry 10.1.0.0/16 tells the Docker daemon that all registries whose domain resolve to an IP address is part of the subnet described by the CIDR syntax, should be considered insecure.

The flag can be used multiple times to allow multiple registries to be marked as insecure.

If an insecure registry is not marked as insecure, docker pull, docker push, and docker search will result in an error message prompting the user to either secure or pass the --insecure-registry flag to the Docker daemon as described above.

Local registries, whose IP address falls in the 127.0.0.0/8 range, are automatically marked as insecure as of Docker 1.3.2. It is not recommended to rely on this, as it may change in the future.

Running a Docker daemon behind a HTTPS_PROXY

When running inside a LAN that uses a HTTPS proxy, the Docker Hub certificates will be replaced by the proxy‘s certificates. These certificates need to be added to your Docker host’s configuration:

  1. Install the ca-certificates package for your distribution
  2. Ask your network admin for the proxy's CA certificate and append them to /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
  3. Then start your Docker daemon with HTTPS_PROXY=http://username:password@proxy:port/ docker -d. The username: and password@ are optional - and are only needed if your proxy is set up to require authentication.

This will only add the proxy and authentication to the Docker daemon's requests - your docker builds and running containers will need extra configuration to use the proxy

Default Ulimits

--default-ulimit allows you to set the default ulimit options to use for all containers. It takes the same options as --ulimit for docker run. If these defaults are not set, ulimit settings will be inherited, if not set on docker run, from the Docker daemon. Any --ulimit options passed to docker run will overwrite these defaults.

Miscellaneous options

IP masquerading uses address translation to allow containers without a public IP to talk to other machines on the Internet. This may interfere with some network topologies and can be disabled with --ip-masq=false.

Docker supports softlinks for the Docker data directory (/var/lib/docker) and for /var/lib/docker/tmp. The DOCKER_TMPDIR and the data directory can be set like this:

DOCKER_TMPDIR=/mnt/disk2/tmp /usr/local/bin/docker -d -D -g /var/lib/docker -H unix:// > /var/lib/boot2docker/docker.log 2>&1
# or
export DOCKER_TMPDIR=/mnt/disk2/tmp
/usr/local/bin/docker -d -D -g /var/lib/docker -H unix:// > /var/lib/boot2docker/docker.log 2>&1

attach

Usage: docker attach [OPTIONS] CONTAINER

Attach to a running container

  --no-stdin=false    Do not attach STDIN
  --sig-proxy=true    Proxy all received signals to the process

The docker attach command allows you to attach to a running container using the container's ID or name, either to view its ongoing output or to control it interactively. You can attach to the same contained process multiple times simultaneously, screen sharing style, or quickly view the progress of your daemonized process.

You can detach from the container and leave it running with CTRL-p CTRL-q (for a quiet exit) or with CTRL-c if --sig-proxy is false.

If --sig-proxy is true (the default),CTRL-c sends a SIGINT to the container.

Note: A process running as PID 1 inside a container is treated specially by Linux: it ignores any signal with the default action. So, the process will not terminate on SIGINT or SIGTERM unless it is coded to do so.

It is forbidden to redirect the standard input of a docker attach command while attaching to a tty-enabled container (i.e.: launched with -t).

Examples

$ docker run -d --name topdemo ubuntu /usr/bin/top -b
$ docker attach topdemo
top - 02:05:52 up  3:05,  0 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
Tasks:   1 total,   1 running,   0 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.1%us,  0.2%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.7%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
Mem:    373572k total,   355560k used,    18012k free,    27872k buffers
Swap:   786428k total,        0k used,   786428k free,   221740k cached

PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 1 root      20   0 17200 1116  912 R    0  0.3   0:00.03 top

 top - 02:05:55 up  3:05,  0 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
 Tasks:   1 total,   1 running,   0 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
 Cpu(s):  0.0%us,  0.2%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.8%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
 Mem:    373572k total,   355244k used,    18328k free,    27872k buffers
 Swap:   786428k total,        0k used,   786428k free,   221776k cached

   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
       1 root      20   0 17208 1144  932 R    0  0.3   0:00.03 top


 top - 02:05:58 up  3:06,  0 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
 Tasks:   1 total,   1 running,   0 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
 Cpu(s):  0.2%us,  0.3%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.5%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st
 Mem:    373572k total,   355780k used,    17792k free,    27880k buffers
 Swap:   786428k total,        0k used,   786428k free,   221776k cached

 PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
      1 root      20   0 17208 1144  932 R    0  0.3   0:00.03 top
^C$
$ echo $?
0
$ docker ps -a | grep topdemo
7998ac8581f9        ubuntu:14.04        "/usr/bin/top -b"   38 seconds ago      Exited (0) 21 seconds ago                          topdemo

And in this second example, you can see the exit code returned by the bash process is returned by the docker attach command to its caller too:

$ docker run --name test -d -it debian
275c44472aebd77c926d4527885bb09f2f6db21d878c75f0a1c212c03d3bcfab
$ docker attach test
$$ exit 13
exit
$ echo $?
13
$ docker ps -a | grep test
275c44472aeb        debian:7            "/bin/bash"         26 seconds ago      Exited (13) 17 seconds ago                         test

build

Usage: docker build [OPTIONS] PATH | URL | -

Build a new image from the source code at PATH

  -f, --file=""            Name of the Dockerfile (Default is 'PATH/Dockerfile')
  --force-rm=false         Always remove intermediate containers
  --no-cache=false         Do not use cache when building the image
  --pull=false             Always attempt to pull a newer version of the image
  -q, --quiet=false        Suppress the verbose output generated by the containers
  --rm=true                Remove intermediate containers after a successful build
  -t, --tag=""             Repository name (and optionally a tag) for the image
  -m, --memory=""          Memory limit for all build containers
  --memory-swap=""         Total memory (memory + swap), `-1` to disable swap
  -c, --cpu-shares         CPU Shares (relative weight)
  --cpuset-mems=""         MEMs in which to allow execution, e.g. `0-3`, `0,1`
  --cpuset-cpus=""         CPUs in which to allow exection, e.g. `0-3`, `0,1`
  --cgroup-parent=""       Optional parent cgroup for the container

Builds Docker images from a Dockerfile and a “context”. A build's context is the files located in the specified PATH or URL. The build process can refer to any of the files in the context. For example, your build can use an ADD instruction to reference a file in the context.

The URL parameter can specify the location of a Git repository; the repository acts as the build context. The system recursively clones the repository and its submodules using a git clone --depth 1 --recursive command. This command runs in a temporary directory on your local host. After the command succeeds, the directory is sent to the Docker daemon as the context. Local clones give you the ability to access private repositories using local user credentials, VPN's, and so forth.

Git URLs accept context configuration in their fragment section, separated by a colon :. The first part represents the reference that Git will check out, this can be either a branch, a tag, or a commit SHA. The second part represents a subdirectory inside the repository that will be used as a build context.

For example, run this command to use a directory called docker in the branch container:

  $ docker build https://github.com/docker/rootfs.git#container:docker

The following table represents all the valid suffixes with their build contexts:

Build Syntax SuffixCommit UsedBuild Context Used
myrepo.gitrefs/heads/master/
myrepo.git#mytagrefs/tags/mytag/
myrepo.git#mybranchrefs/heads/mybranch/
myrepo.git#abcdefsha1 = abcdef/
myrepo.git#:myfolderrefs/heads/master/myfolder
myrepo.git#master:myfolderrefs/heads/master/myfolder
myrepo.git#mytag:myfolderrefs/tags/mytag/myfolder
myrepo.git#mybranch:myfolderrefs/heads/mybranch/myfolder
myrepo.git#abcdef:myfoldersha1 = abcdef/myfolder

Instead of specifying a context, you can pass a single Dockerfile in the URL or pipe the file in via STDIN. To pipe a Dockerfile from STDIN:

docker build - < Dockerfile

If you use STDIN or specify a URL, the system places the contents into a file called Dockerfile, and any -f, --file option is ignored. In this scenario, there is no context.

By default the docker build command will look for a Dockerfile at the root of the build context. The -f, --file, option lets you specify the path to an alternative file to use instead. This is useful in cases where the same set of files are used for multiple builds. The path must be to a file within the build context. If a relative path is specified then it must to be relative to the current directory.

In most cases, it‘s best to put each Dockerfile in an empty directory. Then, add to that directory only the files needed for building the Dockerfile. To increase the build’s performance, you can exclude files and directories by adding a .dockerignore file to that directory as well. For information on creating one, see the .dockerignore file.

If the Docker client loses connection to the daemon, the build is canceled. This happens if you interrupt the Docker client with ctrl-c or if the Docker client is killed for any reason.

Note: Currently only the “run” phase of the build can be canceled until pull cancelation is implemented).

Return code

On a successful build, a return code of success 0 will be returned. When the build fails, a non-zero failure code will be returned.

There should be informational output of the reason for failure output to STDERR:

$ docker build -t fail .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 2.048 kB
Sending build context to Docker daemon
Step 0 : FROM busybox
 ---> 4986bf8c1536
Step 1 : RUN exit 13
 ---> Running in e26670ec7a0a
INFO[0000] The command [/bin/sh -c exit 13] returned a non-zero code: 13
$ echo $?
1

See also:

Dockerfile Reference.

Examples

$ docker build .
Uploading context 10240 bytes
Step 1 : FROM busybox
Pulling repository busybox
 ---> e9aa60c60128MB/2.284 MB (100%) endpoint: https://cdn-registry-1.docker.io/v1/
Step 2 : RUN ls -lh /
 ---> Running in 9c9e81692ae9
total 24
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root        4.0K Mar 12  2013 bin
drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root        4.0K Oct 19 00:19 dev
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root        4.0K Oct 19 00:19 etc
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root        4.0K Nov 15 23:34 lib
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           3 Mar 12  2013 lib64 -> lib
dr-xr-xr-x  116 root     root           0 Nov 15 23:34 proc
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           3 Mar 12  2013 sbin -> bin
dr-xr-xr-x   13 root     root           0 Nov 15 23:34 sys
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root        4.0K Mar 12  2013 tmp
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root        4.0K Nov 15 23:34 usr
 ---> b35f4035db3f
Step 3 : CMD echo Hello world
 ---> Running in 02071fceb21b
 ---> f52f38b7823e
Successfully built f52f38b7823e
Removing intermediate container 9c9e81692ae9
Removing intermediate container 02071fceb21b

This example specifies that the PATH is ., and so all the files in the local directory get tard and sent to the Docker daemon. The PATH specifies where to find the files for the “context” of the build on the Docker daemon. Remember that the daemon could be running on a remote machine and that no parsing of the Dockerfile happens at the client side (where you're running docker build). That means that all the files at PATH get sent, not just the ones listed to ADD in the Dockerfile.

The transfer of context from the local machine to the Docker daemon is what the docker client means when you see the “Sending build context” message.

If you wish to keep the intermediate containers after the build is complete, you must use --rm=false. This does not affect the build cache.

$ docker build .
Uploading context 18.829 MB
Uploading context
Step 0 : FROM busybox
 ---> 769b9341d937
Step 1 : CMD echo Hello world
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 99cc1ad10469
Successfully built 99cc1ad10469
$ echo ".git" > .dockerignore
$ docker build .
Uploading context  6.76 MB
Uploading context
Step 0 : FROM busybox
 ---> 769b9341d937
Step 1 : CMD echo Hello world
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 99cc1ad10469
Successfully built 99cc1ad10469

This example shows the use of the .dockerignore file to exclude the .git directory from the context. Its effect can be seen in the changed size of the uploaded context. The builder reference contains detailed information on creating a .dockerignore file

$ docker build -t vieux/apache:2.0 .

This will build like the previous example, but it will then tag the resulting image. The repository name will be vieux/apache and the tag will be 2.0

$ docker build - < Dockerfile

This will read a Dockerfile from STDIN without context. Due to the lack of a context, no contents of any local directory will be sent to the Docker daemon. Since there is no context, a Dockerfile ADD only works if it refers to a remote URL.

$ docker build - < context.tar.gz

This will build an image for a compressed context read from STDIN. Supported formats are: bzip2, gzip and xz.

$ docker build github.com/creack/docker-firefox

This will clone the GitHub repository and use the cloned repository as context. The Dockerfile at the root of the repository is used as Dockerfile. Note that you can specify an arbitrary Git repository by using the git:// or git@ schema.

$ docker build -f Dockerfile.debug .

This will use a file called Dockerfile.debug for the build instructions instead of Dockerfile.

$ docker build -f dockerfiles/Dockerfile.debug -t myapp_debug .
$ docker build -f dockerfiles/Dockerfile.prod  -t myapp_prod .

The above commands will build the current build context (as specified by the .) twice, once using a debug version of a Dockerfile and once using a production version.

$ cd /home/me/myapp/some/dir/really/deep
$ docker build -f /home/me/myapp/dockerfiles/debug /home/me/myapp
$ docker build -f ../../../../dockerfiles/debug /home/me/myapp

These two docker build commands do the exact same thing. They both use the contents of the debug file instead of looking for a Dockerfile and will use /home/me/myapp as the root of the build context. Note that debug is in the directory structure of the build context, regardless of how you refer to it on the command line.

Note: docker build will return a no such file or directory error if the file or directory does not exist in the uploaded context. This may happen if there is no context, or if you specify a file that is elsewhere on the Host system. The context is limited to the current directory (and its children) for security reasons, and to ensure repeatable builds on remote Docker hosts. This is also the reason why ADD ../file will not work.

When docker build is run with the --cgroup-parent option the containers used in the build will be run with the corresponding docker run flag.

commit

Usage: docker commit [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [REPOSITORY[:TAG]]

Create a new image from a container's changes

  -a, --author=""     Author (e.g., "John Hannibal Smith <hannibal@a-team.com>")
  -c, --change=[]     Apply specified Dockerfile instructions while committing the image
  -m, --message=""    Commit message
  -p, --pause=true    Pause container during commit

It can be useful to commit a container's file changes or settings into a new image. This allows you debug a container by running an interactive shell, or to export a working dataset to another server. Generally, it is better to use Dockerfiles to manage your images in a documented and maintainable way.

By default, the container being committed and its processes will be paused while the image is committed. This reduces the likelihood of encountering data corruption during the process of creating the commit. If this behavior is undesired, set the ‘p’ option to false.

The --change option will apply Dockerfile instructions to the image that is created. Supported Dockerfile instructions: CMD|ENTRYPOINT|ENV|EXPOSE|ONBUILD|USER|VOLUME|WORKDIR

Commit a container

$ docker ps
ID                  IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS
c3f279d17e0a        ubuntu:12.04        /bin/bash           7 days ago          Up 25 hours
197387f1b436        ubuntu:12.04        /bin/bash           7 days ago          Up 25 hours
$ docker commit c3f279d17e0a  SvenDowideit/testimage:version3
f5283438590d
$ docker images
REPOSITORY                        TAG                 ID                  CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
SvenDowideit/testimage            version3            f5283438590d        16 seconds ago      335.7 MB

Commit a container with new configurations

$ docker ps
ID                  IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS
c3f279d17e0a        ubuntu:12.04        /bin/bash           7 days ago          Up 25 hours
197387f1b436        ubuntu:12.04        /bin/bash           7 days ago          Up 25 hours
$ docker inspect -f "{{ .Config.Env }}" c3f279d17e0a
[HOME=/ PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin]
$ docker commit --change "ENV DEBUG true" c3f279d17e0a  SvenDowideit/testimage:version3
f5283438590d
$ docker inspect -f "{{ .Config.Env }}" f5283438590d
[HOME=/ PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin DEBUG=true]

cp

Copy files or folders from a container‘s filesystem to the directory on the host. Use ‘-’ to write the data as a tar file to STDOUT. CONTAINER:PATH is relative to the root of the container’s filesystem.

Usage: docker cp CONTAINER:PATH HOSTDIR|-

Copy files/folders from the PATH to the HOSTDIR.

create

Creates a new container.

Usage: docker create [OPTIONS] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]

Create a new container

  -a, --attach=[]            Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR
  --add-host=[]              Add a custom host-to-IP mapping (host:ip)
  --blkio-weight=0           Block IO weight (relative weight)
  -c, --cpu-shares=0         CPU shares (relative weight)
  --cap-add=[]               Add Linux capabilities
  --cap-drop=[]              Drop Linux capabilities
  --cgroup-parent=""         Optional parent cgroup for the container
  --cidfile=""               Write the container ID to the file
  --cpuset-cpus=""           CPUs in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --cpuset-mems=""           Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --cpu-period=0             Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) period
  --cpu-quota=0              Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) quota
  --device=[]                Add a host device to the container
  --dns=[]                   Set custom DNS servers
  --dns-search=[]            Set custom DNS search domains
  -e, --env=[]               Set environment variables
  --entrypoint=""            Overwrite the default ENTRYPOINT of the image
  --env-file=[]              Read in a file of environment variables
  --expose=[]                Expose a port or a range of ports
  -h, --hostname=""          Container host name
  -i, --interactive=false    Keep STDIN open even if not attached
  --ipc=""                   IPC namespace to use
  -l, --label=[]             Set metadata on the container (e.g., --label=com.example.key=value)
  --label-file=[]            Read in a line delimited file of labels
  --link=[]                  Add link to another container
  --log-driver=""            Logging driver for container
  --log-opt=[]               Log driver specific options
  --lxc-conf=[]              Add custom lxc options
  -m, --memory=""            Memory limit
  --mac-address=""           Container MAC address (e.g. 92:d0:c6:0a:29:33)
  --name=""                  Assign a name to the container
  --net="bridge"             Set the Network mode for the container
  --oom-kill-disable=false   Whether to disable OOM Killer for the container or not
  -P, --publish-all=false    Publish all exposed ports to random ports
  -p, --publish=[]           Publish a container's port(s) to the host
  --pid=""                   PID namespace to use
  --uts=""                   UTS namespace to use
  --privileged=false         Give extended privileges to this container
  --read-only=false          Mount the container's root filesystem as read only
  --restart="no"             Restart policy (no, on-failure[:max-retry], always)
  --security-opt=[]          Security options
  -t, --tty=false            Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  -u, --user=""              Username or UID
  -v, --volume=[]            Bind mount a volume
  --volumes-from=[]          Mount volumes from the specified container(s)
  -w, --workdir=""           Working directory inside the container

The docker create command creates a writeable container layer over the specified image and prepares it for running the specified command. The container ID is then printed to STDOUT. This is similar to docker run -d except the container is never started. You can then use the docker start <container_id> command to start the container at any point.

This is useful when you want to set up a container configuration ahead of time so that it is ready to start when you need it.

Please see the run command section and the Docker run reference for more details.

Examples

$ docker create -t -i fedora bash
6d8af538ec541dd581ebc2a24153a28329acb5268abe5ef868c1f1a261221752
$ docker start -a -i 6d8af538ec5
bash-4.2#

As of v1.4.0 container volumes are initialized during the docker create phase (i.e., docker run too). For example, this allows you to create the data volume container, and then use it from another container:

$ docker create -v /data --name data ubuntu
240633dfbb98128fa77473d3d9018f6123b99c454b3251427ae190a7d951ad57
$ docker run --rm --volumes-from data ubuntu ls -la /data
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Dec  5 04:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 48 root root 4096 Dec  5 04:11 ..

Similarly, create a host directory bind mounted volume container, which can then be used from the subsequent container:

$ docker create -v /home/docker:/docker --name docker ubuntu
9aa88c08f319cd1e4515c3c46b0de7cc9aa75e878357b1e96f91e2c773029f03
$ docker run --rm --volumes-from docker ubuntu ls -la /docker
total 20
drwxr-sr-x  5 1000 staff  180 Dec  5 04:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 48 root root  4096 Dec  5 04:13 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 staff 3833 Dec  5 04:01 .ash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  446 Nov 28 11:51 .ashrc
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff   25 Dec  5 04:00 .gitconfig
drwxr-sr-x  3 1000 staff   60 Dec  1 03:28 .local
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  920 Nov 28 11:51 .profile
drwx--S---  2 1000 staff  460 Dec  5 00:51 .ssh
drwxr-xr-x 32 1000 staff 1140 Dec  5 04:01 docker

diff

List the changed files and directories in a container᾿s filesystem

Usage: docker diff CONTAINER

Inspect changes on a container's filesystem

There are 3 events that are listed in the diff:

  1. A - Add
  2. D - Delete
  3. C - Change

For example:

$ docker diff 7bb0e258aefe

C /dev
A /dev/kmsg
C /etc
A /etc/mtab
A /go
A /go/src
A /go/src/github.com
A /go/src/github.com/docker
A /go/src/github.com/docker/docker
A /go/src/github.com/docker/docker/.git
....

events

Usage: docker events [OPTIONS]

Get real time events from the server

  -f, --filter=[]    Filter output based on conditions provided
  --since=""         Show all events created since timestamp
  --until=""         Stream events until this timestamp

Docker containers will report the following events:

create, destroy, die, export, kill, oom, pause, restart, start, stop, unpause

and Docker images will report:

untag, delete

If you do not provide the --since option, the command returns only new and/or live events.

Filtering

The filtering flag (-f or --filter) format is of “key=value”. If you would like to use multiple filters, pass multiple flags (e.g., --filter "foo=bar" --filter "bif=baz")

Using the same filter multiple times will be handled as a OR; for example --filter container=588a23dac085 --filter container=a8f7720b8c22 will display events for container 588a23dac085 OR container a8f7720b8c22

Using multiple filters will be handled as a AND; for example --filter container=588a23dac085 --filter event=start will display events for container container 588a23dac085 AND the event type is start

The currently supported filters are:

  • container
  • event
  • image

Examples

You'll need two shells for this example.

Shell 1: Listening for events:

$ docker events

Shell 2: Start and Stop containers:

$ docker start 4386fb97867d
$ docker stop 4386fb97867d
$ docker stop 7805c1d35632

Shell 1: (Again .. now showing events):

2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) start
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

Show events in the past from a specified time:

$ docker events --since 1378216169
2014-03-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-03-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --since '2013-09-03'
2014-09-03T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) start
2014-09-03T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-09-03T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --since '2013-09-03T15:49:29'
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

Filter events:

$ docker events --filter 'event=stop'
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-09-03T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --filter 'image=ubuntu-1:14.04'
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) start
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop

$ docker events --filter 'container=7805c1d35632'
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --filter 'container=7805c1d35632' --filter 'container=4386fb97867d'
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --filter 'container=7805c1d35632' --filter 'event=stop'
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

$ docker events --filter 'container=container_1' --filter 'container=container_2'
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) die
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 4386fb97867d: (from ubuntu-1:14.04) stop
2014-05-10T17:42:14.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) die
2014-09-03T15:49:29.999999999Z07:00 7805c1d35632: (from redis:2.8) stop

exec

Usage: docker exec [OPTIONS] CONTAINER COMMAND [ARG...]

Run a command in a running container

  -d, --detach=false         Detached mode: run command in the background
  -i, --interactive=false    Keep STDIN open even if not attached
  -t, --tty=false            Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  -u, --user=                Username or UID (format: <name|uid>[:<group|gid>])

The docker exec command runs a new command in a running container.

The command started using docker exec only runs while the container's primary process (PID 1) is running, and it is not restarted if the container is restarted.

If the container is paused, then the docker exec command will fail with an error:

$ docker pause test
test
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS                   PORTS               NAMES
1ae3b36715d2        ubuntu:latest       "bash"              17 seconds ago      Up 16 seconds (Paused)                       test
$ docker exec test ls
FATA[0000] Error response from daemon: Container test is paused, unpause the container before exec
$ echo $?
1

Examples

$ docker run --name ubuntu_bash --rm -i -t ubuntu bash

This will create a container named ubuntu_bash and start a Bash session.

$ docker exec -d ubuntu_bash touch /tmp/execWorks

This will create a new file /tmp/execWorks inside the running container ubuntu_bash, in the background.

$ docker exec -it ubuntu_bash bash

This will create a new Bash session in the container ubuntu_bash.

export

Usage: docker export [OPTIONS] CONTAINER

Export the contents of a filesystem to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)

  -o, --output=""    Write to a file, instead of STDOUT

  Produces a tarred repository to the standard output stream.

For example:

$ docker export red_panda > latest.tar

Or

$ docker export --output="latest.tar" red_panda

Note: docker export does not export the contents of volumes associated with the container. If a volume is mounted on top of an existing directory in the container, docker export will export the contents of the underlying directory, not the contents of the volume.

Refer to Backup, restore, or migrate data volumes in the user guide for examples on exporting data in a volume.

history

Usage: docker history [OPTIONS] IMAGE

Show the history of an image

  -H, --human=true     Print sizes and dates in human readable format
  --no-trunc=false     Don't truncate output
  -q, --quiet=false    Only show numeric IDs

To see how the docker:latest image was built:

$ docker history docker
IMAGE               CREATED             CREATED BY                                      SIZE                COMMENT
3e23a5875458        8 days ago          /bin/sh -c #(nop) ENV LC_ALL=C.UTF-8            0 B
8578938dd170        8 days ago          /bin/sh -c dpkg-reconfigure locales &&    loc   1.245 MB
be51b77efb42        8 days ago          /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install    338.3 MB
4b137612be55        6 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) ADD jessie.tar.xz in /        121 MB
750d58736b4b        6 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) MAINTAINER Tianon Gravi <ad   0 B
511136ea3c5a        9 months ago                                                        0 B                 Imported from -

To see how the docker:apache image was added to a container's base image:

$ docker history docker:scm
IMAGE               CREATED             CREATED BY                                      SIZE                COMMENT
2ac9d1098bf1        3 months ago        /bin/bash                                       241.4 MB            Added Apache to Fedora base image
88b42ffd1f7c        5 months ago        /bin/sh -c #(nop) ADD file:1fd8d7f9f6557cafc7   373.7 MB            
c69cab00d6ef        5 months ago        /bin/sh -c #(nop) MAINTAINER Lokesh Mandvekar   0 B                 
511136ea3c5a        19 months ago                                                       0 B                 Imported from -

images

Usage: docker images [OPTIONS] [REPOSITORY]

List images

  -a, --all=false      Show all images (default hides intermediate images)
  --digests=false      Show digests
  -f, --filter=[]      Filter output based on conditions provided
  --help=false         Print usage
  --no-trunc=false     Don't truncate output
  -q, --quiet=false    Only show numeric IDs

The default docker images will show all top level images, their repository and tags, and their virtual size.

Docker images have intermediate layers that increase reusability, decrease disk usage, and speed up docker build by allowing each step to be cached. These intermediate layers are not shown by default.

The VIRTUAL SIZE is the cumulative space taken up by the image and all its parent images. This is also the disk space used by the contents of the Tar file created when you docker save an image.

An image will be listed more than once if it has multiple repository names or tags. This single image (identifiable by its matching IMAGE ID) uses up the VIRTUAL SIZE listed only once.

Listing the most recently created images

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
<none>                    <none>              77af4d6b9913        19 hours ago        1.089 GB
committ                   latest              b6fa739cedf5        19 hours ago        1.089 GB
<none>                    <none>              78a85c484f71        19 hours ago        1.089 GB
docker                    latest              30557a29d5ab        20 hours ago        1.089 GB
<none>                    <none>              5ed6274db6ce        24 hours ago        1.089 GB
postgres                  9                   746b819f315e        4 days ago          213.4 MB
postgres                  9.3                 746b819f315e        4 days ago          213.4 MB
postgres                  9.3.5               746b819f315e        4 days ago          213.4 MB
postgres                  latest              746b819f315e        4 days ago          213.4 MB

Listing the full length image IDs

$ docker images --no-trunc
REPOSITORY                    TAG                 IMAGE ID                                                           CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
<none>                        <none>              77af4d6b9913e693e8d0b4b294fa62ade6054e6b2f1ffb617ac955dd63fb0182   19 hours ago        1.089 GB
committest                    latest              b6fa739cedf5ea12a620a439402b6004d057da800f91c7524b5086a5e4749c9f   19 hours ago        1.089 GB
<none>                        <none>              78a85c484f71509adeaace20e72e941f6bdd2b25b4c75da8693efd9f61a37921   19 hours ago        1.089 GB
docker                        latest              30557a29d5abc51e5f1d5b472e79b7e296f595abcf19fe6b9199dbbc809c6ff4   20 hours ago        1.089 GB
<none>                        <none>              0124422dd9f9cf7ef15c0617cda3931ee68346455441d66ab8bdc5b05e9fdce5   20 hours ago        1.089 GB
<none>                        <none>              18ad6fad340262ac2a636efd98a6d1f0ea775ae3d45240d3418466495a19a81b   22 hours ago        1.082 GB
<none>                        <none>              f9f1e26352f0a3ba6a0ff68167559f64f3e21ff7ada60366e2d44a04befd1d3a   23 hours ago        1.089 GB
tryout                        latest              2629d1fa0b81b222fca63371ca16cbf6a0772d07759ff80e8d1369b926940074   23 hours ago        131.5 MB
<none>                        <none>              5ed6274db6ceb2397844896966ea239290555e74ef307030ebb01ff91b1914df   24 hours ago        1.089 GB

Listing image digests

Images that use the v2 or later format have a content-addressable identifier called a digest. As long as the input used to generate the image is unchanged, the digest value is predictable. To list image digest values, use the --digests flag:

$ docker images --digests
REPOSITORY                         TAG                 DIGEST                                                                    IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
localhost:5000/test/busybox        <none>              sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf   4986bf8c1536        9 weeks ago         2.43 MB

When pushing or pulling to a 2.0 registry, the push or pull command output includes the image digest. You can pull using a digest value. You can also reference by digest in create, run, and rmi commands, as well as the FROM image reference in a Dockerfile.

Filtering

The filtering flag (-f or --filter) format is of “key=value”. If there is more than one filter, then pass multiple flags (e.g., --filter "foo=bar" --filter "bif=baz")

The currently supported filters are:

  • dangling (boolean - true or false)
  • label (label=<key> or label=<key>=<value>)
Untagged images
$ docker images --filter "dangling=true"

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
<none>              <none>              8abc22fbb042        4 weeks ago         0 B
<none>              <none>              48e5f45168b9        4 weeks ago         2.489 MB
<none>              <none>              bf747efa0e2f        4 weeks ago         0 B
<none>              <none>              980fe10e5736        12 weeks ago        101.4 MB
<none>              <none>              dea752e4e117        12 weeks ago        101.4 MB
<none>              <none>              511136ea3c5a        8 months ago        0 B

This will display untagged images, that are the leaves of the images tree (not intermediary layers). These images occur when a new build of an image takes the repo:tag away from the image ID, leaving it untagged. A warning will be issued if trying to remove an image when a container is presently using it. By having this flag it allows for batch cleanup.

Ready for use by docker rmi ..., like:

$ docker rmi $(docker images -f "dangling=true" -q)

8abc22fbb042
48e5f45168b9
bf747efa0e2f
980fe10e5736
dea752e4e117
511136ea3c5a

NOTE: Docker will warn you if any containers exist that are using these untagged images.

import

Usage: docker import URL|- [REPOSITORY[:TAG]]

Create an empty filesystem image and import the contents of the
tarball (.tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .bzip, .tar.xz, .txz) into it, then
optionally tag it.

  -c, --change=[]     Apply specified Dockerfile instructions while importing the image

URLs must start with http and point to a single file archive (.tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .bzip, .tar.xz, or .txz) containing a root filesystem. If you would like to import from a local directory or archive, you can use the - parameter to take the data from STDIN.

The --change option will apply Dockerfile instructions to the image that is created. Supported Dockerfile instructions: CMD|ENTRYPOINT|ENV|EXPOSE|ONBUILD|USER|VOLUME|WORKDIR

Examples

Import from a remote location:

This will create a new untagged image.

$ docker import http://example.com/exampleimage.tgz

Import from a local file:

Import to docker via pipe and STDIN.

$ cat exampleimage.tgz | docker import - exampleimagelocal:new

Import from a local directory:

$ sudo tar -c . | docker import - exampleimagedir

Import from a local directory with new configurations:

$ sudo tar -c . | docker import --change "ENV DEBUG true" - exampleimagedir

Note the sudo in this example – you must preserve the ownership of the files (especially root ownership) during the archiving with tar. If you are not root (or the sudo command) when you tar, then the ownerships might not get preserved.

info

Usage: docker info

Display system-wide information

For example:

$ docker -D info
Containers: 14
Images: 52
Storage Driver: aufs
 Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Dirs: 545
Execution Driver: native-0.2
Logging Driver: json-file
Kernel Version: 3.13.0-24-generic
Operating System: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
CPUs: 1
Name: prod-server-42
ID: 7TRN:IPZB:QYBB:VPBQ:UMPP:KARE:6ZNR:XE6T:7EWV:PKF4:ZOJD:TPYS
Total Memory: 2 GiB
Debug mode (server): false
Debug mode (client): true
File Descriptors: 10
Goroutines: 9
System Time: Tue Mar 10 18:38:57 UTC 2015
EventsListeners: 0
Init Path: /usr/bin/docker
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Http Proxy: http://test:test@localhost:8080
Https Proxy: https://test:test@localhost:8080
No Proxy: 9.81.1.160
Username: svendowideit
Registry: [https://index.docker.io/v1/]
Labels:
 storage=ssd

The global -D option tells all docker commands to output debug information.

When sending issue reports, please use docker version and docker -D info to ensure we know how your setup is configured.

inspect

Usage: docker inspect [OPTIONS] CONTAINER|IMAGE [CONTAINER|IMAGE...]

Return low-level information on a container or image

  -f, --format=""    Format the output using the given go template

By default, this will render all results in a JSON array. If a format is specified, the given template will be executed for each result.

Go's text/template package describes all the details of the format.

Examples

Get an instance's IP address:

For the most part, you can pick out any field from the JSON in a fairly straightforward manner.

$ docker inspect --format='{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}' $INSTANCE_ID

Get an instance's MAC Address:

For the most part, you can pick out any field from the JSON in a fairly straightforward manner.

$ docker inspect --format='{{.NetworkSettings.MacAddress}}' $INSTANCE_ID

Get an instance's log path:

$ docker inspect --format='{{.LogPath}}' $INSTANCE_ID

List All Port Bindings:

One can loop over arrays and maps in the results to produce simple text output:

$ docker inspect --format='{{range $p, $conf := .NetworkSettings.Ports}} {{$p}} -> {{(index $conf 0).HostPort}} {{end}}' $INSTANCE_ID

Find a Specific Port Mapping:

The .Field syntax doesn‘t work when the field name begins with a number, but the template language’s index function does. The .NetworkSettings.Ports section contains a map of the internal port mappings to a list of external address/port objects, so to grab just the numeric public port, you use index to find the specific port map, and then index 0 contains the first object inside of that. Then we ask for the HostPort field to get the public address.

$ docker inspect --format='{{(index (index .NetworkSettings.Ports "8787/tcp") 0).HostPort}}' $INSTANCE_ID

Get config:

The .Field syntax doesn‘t work when the field contains JSON data, but the template language’s custom json function does. The .config section contains complex JSON object, so to grab it as JSON, you use json to convert the configuration object into JSON.

$ docker inspect --format='{{json .config}}' $INSTANCE_ID

kill

Usage: docker kill [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Kill a running container using SIGKILL or a specified signal

  -s, --signal="KILL"    Signal to send to the container

The main process inside the container will be sent SIGKILL, or any signal specified with option --signal.

load

Usage: docker load [OPTIONS]

Load an image from a tar archive on STDIN

  -i, --input=""     Read from a tar archive file, instead of STDIN

Loads a tarred repository from a file or the standard input stream. Restores both images and tags.

$ docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
$ docker load < busybox.tar
$ docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
busybox             latest              769b9341d937        7 weeks ago         2.489 MB
$ docker load --input fedora.tar
$ docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE
busybox             latest              769b9341d937        7 weeks ago         2.489 MB
fedora              rawhide             0d20aec6529d        7 weeks ago         387 MB
fedora              20                  58394af37342        7 weeks ago         385.5 MB
fedora              heisenbug           58394af37342        7 weeks ago         385.5 MB
fedora              latest              58394af37342        7 weeks ago         385.5 MB

login

Usage: docker login [OPTIONS] [SERVER]

Register or log in to a Docker registry server, if no server is
specified "https://index.docker.io/v1/" is the default.

  -e, --email=""       Email
  -p, --password=""    Password
  -u, --username=""    Username

If you want to login to a self-hosted registry you can specify this by adding the server name.

example:
$ docker login localhost:8080

logout

Usage: docker logout [SERVER]

Log out from a Docker registry, if no server is
specified "https://index.docker.io/v1/" is the default.

For example:

$ docker logout localhost:8080

logs

Usage: docker logs [OPTIONS] CONTAINER

Fetch the logs of a container

  -f, --follow=false        Follow log output
  --since=""                Show logs since timestamp
  -t, --timestamps=false    Show timestamps
  --tail="all"              Number of lines to show from the end of the logs

NOTE: this command is available only for containers with json-file logging driver.

The docker logs command batch-retrieves logs present at the time of execution.

The docker logs --follow command will continue streaming the new output from the container's STDOUT and STDERR.

Passing a negative number or a non-integer to --tail is invalid and the value is set to all in that case. This behavior may change in the future.

The docker logs --timestamp commands will add an RFC3339Nano timestamp, for example 2014-09-16T06:17:46.000000000Z, to each log entry. To ensure that the timestamps for are aligned the nano-second part of the timestamp will be padded with zero when necessary.

The --since option shows logs of a container generated only after the given date, specified as RFC 3339 or UNIX timestamp. The --since option can be combined with the --follow and --tail options.

pause

Usage: docker pause CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Pause all processes within a container

The docker pause command uses the cgroups freezer to suspend all processes in a container. Traditionally, when suspending a process the SIGSTOP signal is used, which is observable by the process being suspended. With the cgroups freezer the process is unaware, and unable to capture, that it is being suspended, and subsequently resumed.

See the cgroups freezer documentation for further details.

port

Usage: docker port CONTAINER [PRIVATE_PORT[/PROTO]]

List port mappings for the CONTAINER, or lookup the public-facing port that is
NAT-ed to the PRIVATE_PORT

You can find out all the ports mapped by not specifying a PRIVATE_PORT, or just a specific mapping:

$ docker ps test
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                            NAMES
b650456536c7        busybox:latest      top                 54 minutes ago      Up 54 minutes       0.0.0.0:1234->9876/tcp, 0.0.0.0:4321->7890/tcp   test
$ docker port test
7890/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:4321
9876/tcp -> 0.0.0.0:1234
$ docker port test 7890/tcp
0.0.0.0:4321
$ docker port test 7890/udp
2014/06/24 11:53:36 Error: No public port '7890/udp' published for test
$ docker port test 7890
0.0.0.0:4321

ps

Usage: docker ps [OPTIONS]

List containers

  -a, --all=false       Show all containers (default shows just running)
  --before=""           Show only container created before Id or Name
  -f, --filter=[]       Filter output based on conditions provided
  -l, --latest=false    Show the latest created container, include non-running
  -n=-1                 Show n last created containers, include non-running
  --no-trunc=false      Don't truncate output
  -q, --quiet=false     Only display numeric IDs
  -s, --size=false      Display total file sizes
  --since=""            Show created since Id or Name, include non-running

Running docker ps --no-trunc showing 2 linked containers.

$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                        COMMAND                CREATED              STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
4c01db0b339c        ubuntu:12.04                 bash                   17 seconds ago       Up 16 seconds       3300-3310/tcp       webapp
d7886598dbe2        crosbymichael/redis:latest   /redis-server --dir    33 minutes ago       Up 33 minutes       6379/tcp            redis,webapp/db

docker ps will show only running containers by default. To see all containers: docker ps -a

docker ps will group exposed ports into a single range if possible. E.g., a container that exposes TCP ports 100, 101, 102 will display 100-102/tcp in the PORTS column.

Filtering

The filtering flag (-f or --filter) format is a key=value pair. If there is more than one filter, then pass multiple flags (e.g. --filter "foo=bar" --filter "bif=baz")

The currently supported filters are:

  • id (container's id)
  • label (label=<key> or label=<key>=<value>)
  • name (container's name)
  • exited (int - the code of exited containers. Only useful with --all)
  • status (restarting|running|paused|exited)
Successfully exited containers
$ docker ps -a --filter 'exited=0'
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE             COMMAND                CREATED             STATUS                   PORTS                      NAMES
ea09c3c82f6e        registry:latest   /srv/run.sh            2 weeks ago         Exited (0) 2 weeks ago   127.0.0.1:5000->5000/tcp   desperate_leakey
106ea823fe4e        fedora:latest     /bin/sh -c 'bash -l'   2 weeks ago         Exited (0) 2 weeks ago                              determined_albattani
48ee228c9464        fedora:20         bash                   2 weeks ago         Exited (0) 2 weeks ago                              tender_torvalds

This shows all the containers that have exited with status of ‘0’

pull

Usage: docker pull [OPTIONS] NAME[:TAG] | [REGISTRY_HOST[:REGISTRY_PORT]/]NAME[:TAG]

Pull an image or a repository from the registry

  -a, --all-tags=false    Download all tagged images in the repository

Most of your images will be created on top of a base image from the Docker Hub registry.

Docker Hub contains many pre-built images that you can pull and try without needing to define and configure your own.

It is also possible to manually specify the path of a registry to pull from. For example, if you have set up a local registry, you can specify its path to pull from it. A repository path is similar to a URL, but does not contain a protocol specifier (https://, for example).

To download a particular image, or set of images (i.e., a repository), use docker pull:

$ docker pull debian
# will pull the debian:latest image and its intermediate layers
$ docker pull debian:testing
# will pull the image named debian:testing and any intermediate
# layers it is based on.
$ docker pull debian@sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf
# will pull the image from the debian repository with the digest
# sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf
# and any intermediate layers it is based on.
# (Typically the empty `scratch` image, a MAINTAINER layer,
# and the un-tarred base).
$ docker pull --all-tags centos
# will pull all the images from the centos repository
$ docker pull registry.hub.docker.com/debian
# manually specifies the path to the default Docker registry. This could
# be replaced with the path to a local registry to pull from another source.
# sudo docker pull myhub.com:8080/test-image

push

Usage: docker push NAME[:TAG]

Push an image or a repository to the registry

Use docker push to share your images to the Docker Hub registry or to a self-hosted one.

rename

Usage: docker rename OLD_NAME NEW_NAME

rename a existing container to a NEW_NAME

The docker rename command allows the container to be renamed to a different name.

restart

Usage: docker restart [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Restart a running container

  -t, --time=10      Seconds to wait for stop before killing the container

rm

Usage: docker rm [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Remove one or more containers

  -f, --force=false      Force the removal of a running container (uses SIGKILL)
  -l, --link=false       Remove the specified link
  -v, --volumes=false    Remove the volumes associated with the container

Examples

$ docker rm /redis
/redis

This will remove the container referenced under the link /redis.

$ docker rm --link /webapp/redis
/webapp/redis

This will remove the underlying link between /webapp and the /redis containers removing all network communication.

$ docker rm --force redis
redis

The main process inside the container referenced under the link /redis will receive SIGKILL, then the container will be removed.

$ docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

This command will delete all stopped containers. The command docker ps -a -q will return all existing container IDs and pass them to the rm command which will delete them. Any running containers will not be deleted.

rmi

Usage: docker rmi [OPTIONS] IMAGE [IMAGE...]

Remove one or more images

  -f, --force=false    Force removal of the image
  --no-prune=false     Do not delete untagged parents

Removing tagged images

You can remove an image using its short or long ID, its tag, or its digest. If an image has one or more tag or digest reference, you must remove all of them before the image is removed.

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
test1                     latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)
test                      latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)
test2                     latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)

$ docker rmi fd484f19954f
Error: Conflict, cannot delete image fd484f19954f because it is tagged in multiple repositories, use -f to force
2013/12/11 05:47:16 Error: failed to remove one or more images

$ docker rmi test1
Untagged: test1:latest
$ docker rmi test2
Untagged: test2:latest

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
test                      latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)
$ docker rmi test
Untagged: test:latest
Deleted: fd484f19954f4920da7ff372b5067f5b7ddb2fd3830cecd17b96ea9e286ba5b8

If you use the -f flag and specify the image's short or long ID, then this command untags and removes all images that match the specified ID.

$ docker images
REPOSITORY                TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
test1                     latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)
test                      latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)
test2                     latest              fd484f19954f        23 seconds ago      7 B (virtual 4.964 MB)

$ docker rmi -f fd484f19954f
Untagged: test1:latest
Untagged: test:latest
Untagged: test2:latest
Deleted: fd484f19954f4920da7ff372b5067f5b7ddb2fd3830cecd17b96ea9e286ba5b8

An image pulled by digest has no tag associated with it:

$ docker images --digests
REPOSITORY                     TAG       DIGEST                                                                    IMAGE ID        CREATED         VIRTUAL SIZE
localhost:5000/test/busybox    <none>    sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf   4986bf8c1536    9 weeks ago     2.43 MB

To remove an image using its digest:

$ docker rmi localhost:5000/test/busybox@sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf
Untagged: localhost:5000/test/busybox@sha256:cbbf2f9a99b47fc460d422812b6a5adff7dfee951d8fa2e4a98caa0382cfbdbf
Deleted: 4986bf8c15363d1c5d15512d5266f8777bfba4974ac56e3270e7760f6f0a8125
Deleted: ea13149945cb6b1e746bf28032f02e9b5a793523481a0a18645fc77ad53c4ea2
Deleted: df7546f9f060a2268024c8a230d8639878585defcc1bc6f79d2728a13957871b

run

Usage: docker run [OPTIONS] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]

Run a command in a new container

  -a, --attach=[]            Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR
  --add-host=[]              Add a custom host-to-IP mapping (host:ip)
  --blkio-weight=0           Block IO weight (relative weight)
  -c, --cpu-shares=0         CPU shares (relative weight)
  --cap-add=[]               Add Linux capabilities
  --cap-drop=[]              Drop Linux capabilities
  --cidfile=""               Write the container ID to the file
  --cpuset-cpus=""           CPUs in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --cpuset-mems=""           Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --cpu-period=0             Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) period
  --cpu-quota=0              Limit the CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) quota
  -d, --detach=false         Run container in background and print container ID
  --device=[]                Add a host device to the container
  --dns=[]                   Set custom DNS servers
  --dns-search=[]            Set custom DNS search domains
  -e, --env=[]               Set environment variables
  --entrypoint=""            Overwrite the default ENTRYPOINT of the image
  --env-file=[]              Read in a file of environment variables
  --expose=[]                Expose a port or a range of ports
  -h, --hostname=""          Container host name
  --help=false               Print usage
  -i, --interactive=false    Keep STDIN open even if not attached
  --ipc=""                   IPC namespace to use
  --link=[]                  Add link to another container
  --log-driver=""            Logging driver for container
  --log-opt=[]               Log driver specific options
  --lxc-conf=[]              Add custom lxc options
  -m, --memory=""            Memory limit
  -l, --label=[]             Set metadata on the container (e.g., --label=com.example.key=value)
  --label-file=[]            Read in a file of labels (EOL delimited)
  --mac-address=""           Container MAC address (e.g. 92:d0:c6:0a:29:33)
  --memory-swap=""           Total memory (memory + swap), '-1' to disable swap
  --name=""                  Assign a name to the container
  --net="bridge"             Set the Network mode for the container
  --oom-kill-disable=false   Whether to disable OOM Killer for the container or not
  -P, --publish-all=false    Publish all exposed ports to random ports
  -p, --publish=[]           Publish a container's port(s) to the host
  --pid=""                   PID namespace to use
  --uts=""                   UTS namespace to use
  --privileged=false         Give extended privileges to this container
  --read-only=false          Mount the container's root filesystem as read only
  --restart="no"             Restart policy (no, on-failure[:max-retry], always)
  --rm=false                 Automatically remove the container when it exits
  --security-opt=[]          Security Options
  --sig-proxy=true           Proxy received signals to the process
  -t, --tty=false            Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  -u, --user=""              Username or UID (format: <name|uid>[:<group|gid>])
  -v, --volume=[]            Bind mount a volume
  --volumes-from=[]          Mount volumes from the specified container(s)
  -w, --workdir=""           Working directory inside the container

The docker run command first creates a writeable container layer over the specified image, and then starts it using the specified command. That is, docker run is equivalent to the API /containers/create then /containers/(id)/start. A stopped container can be restarted with all its previous changes intact using docker start. See docker ps -a to view a list of all containers.

There is detailed information about docker run in the Docker run reference.

The docker run command can be used in combination with docker commit to change the command that a container runs.

See the Docker User Guide for more detailed information about the --expose, -p, -P and --link parameters, and linking containers.

Examples

$ docker run --name test -it debian
$$ exit 13
exit
$ echo $?
13
$ docker ps -a | grep test
275c44472aeb        debian:7            "/bin/bash"         26 seconds ago      Exited (13) 17 seconds ago                         test

In this example, we are running bash interactively in the debian:latest image, and giving the container the name test. We then quit bash by running exit 13, which means bash will have an exit code of 13. This is then passed on to the caller of docker run, and is recorded in the test container metadata.

$ docker run --cidfile /tmp/docker_test.cid ubuntu echo "test"

This will create a container and print test to the console. The cidfile flag makes Docker attempt to create a new file and write the container ID to it. If the file exists already, Docker will return an error. Docker will close this file when docker run exits.

$ docker run -t -i --rm ubuntu bash
root@bc338942ef20:/# mount -t tmpfs none /mnt
mount: permission denied

This will not work, because by default, most potentially dangerous kernel capabilities are dropped; including cap_sys_admin (which is required to mount filesystems). However, the --privileged flag will allow it to run:

$ docker run --privileged ubuntu bash
root@50e3f57e16e6:/# mount -t tmpfs none /mnt
root@50e3f57e16e6:/# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
none            1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /mnt

The --privileged flag gives all capabilities to the container, and it also lifts all the limitations enforced by the device cgroup controller. In other words, the container can then do almost everything that the host can do. This flag exists to allow special use-cases, like running Docker within Docker.

$ docker  run -w /path/to/dir/ -i -t  ubuntu pwd

The -w lets the command being executed inside directory given, here /path/to/dir/. If the path does not exists it is created inside the container.

$ docker  run  -v `pwd`:`pwd` -w `pwd` -i -t  ubuntu pwd

The -v flag mounts the current working directory into the container. The -w lets the command being executed inside the current working directory, by changing into the directory to the value returned by pwd. So this combination executes the command using the container, but inside the current working directory.

$ docker run -v /doesnt/exist:/foo -w /foo -i -t ubuntu bash

When the host directory of a bind-mounted volume doesn't exist, Docker will automatically create this directory on the host for you. In the example above, Docker will create the /doesnt/exist folder before starting your container.

$ docker run --read-only -v /icanwrite busybox touch /icanwrite here

Volumes can be used in combination with --read-only to control where a container writes files. The --read-only flag mounts the container's root filesystem as read only prohibiting writes to locations other than the specified volumes for the container.

$ docker run -t -i -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v ./static-docker:/usr/bin/docker busybox sh

By bind-mounting the docker unix socket and statically linked docker binary (such as that provided by https://get.docker.com), you give the container the full access to create and manipulate the host's Docker daemon.

$ docker run -p 127.0.0.1:80:8080 ubuntu bash

This binds port 8080 of the container to port 80 on 127.0.0.1 of the host machine. The Docker User Guide explains in detail how to manipulate ports in Docker.

$ docker run --expose 80 ubuntu bash

This exposes port 80 of the container for use within a link without publishing the port to the host system's interfaces. The Docker User Guide explains in detail how to manipulate ports in Docker.

$ docker run -e MYVAR1 --env MYVAR2=foo --env-file ./env.list ubuntu bash

This sets environmental variables in the container. For illustration all three flags are shown here. Where -e, --env take an environment variable and value, or if no = is provided, then that variable‘s current value is passed through (i.e. $MYVAR1 from the host is set to $MYVAR1 in the container). When no = is provided and that variable is not defined in the client’s environment then that variable will be removed from the container's list of environment variables. All three flags, -e, --env and --env-file can be repeated.

Regardless of the order of these three flags, the --env-file are processed first, and then -e, --env flags. This way, the -e or --env will override variables as needed.

$ cat ./env.list
TEST_FOO=BAR
$ docker run --env TEST_FOO="This is a test" --env-file ./env.list busybox env | grep TEST_FOO
TEST_FOO=This is a test

The --env-file flag takes a filename as an argument and expects each line to be in the VAR=VAL format, mimicking the argument passed to --env. Comment lines need only be prefixed with #

An example of a file passed with --env-file

$ cat ./env.list
TEST_FOO=BAR

# this is a comment
TEST_APP_DEST_HOST=10.10.0.127
TEST_APP_DEST_PORT=8888

# pass through this variable from the caller
TEST_PASSTHROUGH
$ sudo TEST_PASSTHROUGH=howdy docker run --env-file ./env.list busybox env
HOME=/
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
HOSTNAME=5198e0745561
TEST_FOO=BAR
TEST_APP_DEST_HOST=10.10.0.127
TEST_APP_DEST_PORT=8888
TEST_PASSTHROUGH=howdy

$ docker run --name console -t -i ubuntu bash

A label is a a key=value pair that applies metadata to a container. To label a container with two labels:

$ docker run -l my-label --label com.example.foo=bar ubuntu bash

The my-label key doesn't specify a value so the label defaults to an empty string(""). To add multiple labels, repeat the label flag (-l or --label).

The key=value must be unique to avoid overwriting the label value. If you specify labels with identical keys but different values, each subsequent value overwrites the previous. Docker uses the last key=value you supply.

Use the --label-file flag to load multiple labels from a file. Delimit each label in the file with an EOL mark. The example below loads labels from a labels file in the current directory:

$ docker run --label-file ./labels ubuntu bash

The label-file format is similar to the format for loading environment variables. (Unlike environment variables, labels are not visible to processes running inside a container.) The following example illustrates a label-file format:

com.example.label1="a label"

# this is a comment
com.example.label2=another\ label
com.example.label3

You can load multiple label-files by supplying multiple --label-file flags.

For additional information on working with labels, see Labels - custom metadata in Docker in the Docker User Guide.

$ docker run --link /redis:redis --name console ubuntu bash

The --link flag will link the container named /redis into the newly created container with the alias redis. The new container can access the network and environment of the redis container via environment variables. The --link flag will also just accept the form <name or id> in which case the alias will match the name. For instance, you could have written the previous example as:

$ docker run --link redis --name console ubuntu bash

The --name flag will assign the name console to the newly created container.

$ docker run --volumes-from 777f7dc92da7 --volumes-from ba8c0c54f0f2:ro -i -t ubuntu pwd

The --volumes-from flag mounts all the defined volumes from the referenced containers. Containers can be specified by repetitions of the --volumes-from argument. The container ID may be optionally suffixed with :ro or :rw to mount the volumes in read-only or read-write mode, respectively. By default, the volumes are mounted in the same mode (read write or read only) as the reference container.

Labeling systems like SELinux require proper labels be placed on volume content mounted into a container, otherwise the security system might prevent the processes running inside the container from using the content. By default, volumes are not relabeled.

Two suffixes :z or :Z can be added to the volume mount. These suffixes tell Docker to relabel file objects on the shared volumes. The ‘z’ option tells Docker that the volume content will be shared between containers. Docker will label the content with a shared content label. Shared volumes labels allow all containers to read/write content. The ‘Z’ option tells Docker to label the content with a private unshared label. Private volumes can only be used by the current container.

The -a flag tells docker run to bind to the container's STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR. This makes it possible to manipulate the output and input as needed.

$ echo "test" | docker run -i -a stdin ubuntu cat -

This pipes data into a container and prints the container‘s ID by attaching only to the container’s STDIN.

$ docker run -a stderr ubuntu echo test

This isn‘t going to print anything unless there’s an error because we‘ve only attached to the STDERR of the container. The container’s logs still store what's been written to STDERR and STDOUT.

$ cat somefile | docker run -i -a stdin mybuilder dobuild

This is how piping a file into a container could be done for a build. The container‘s ID will be printed after the build is done and the build logs could be retrieved using docker logs. This is useful if you need to pipe a file or something else into a container and retrieve the container’s ID once the container has finished running.

$ docker run --device=/dev/sdc:/dev/xvdc --device=/dev/sdd --device=/dev/zero:/dev/nulo -i -t ubuntu ls -l /dev/{xvdc,sdd,nulo}
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 Feb  9 16:05 /dev/xvdc
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 Feb  9 16:05 /dev/sdd
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 5 Feb  9 16:05 /dev/nulo

It is often necessary to directly expose devices to a container. The --device option enables that. For example, a specific block storage device or loop device or audio device can be added to an otherwise unprivileged container (without the --privileged flag) and have the application directly access it.

By default, the container will be able to read, write and mknod these devices. This can be overridden using a third :rwm set of options to each --device flag:

	$ docker run --device=/dev/sda:/dev/xvdc --rm -it ubuntu fdisk  /dev/xvdc

	Command (m for help): q
	$ docker run --device=/dev/sda:/dev/xvdc:ro --rm -it ubuntu fdisk  /dev/xvdc
	You will not be able to write the partition table.

	Command (m for help): q

	$ docker run --device=/dev/sda:/dev/xvdc --rm -it ubuntu fdisk  /dev/xvdc

	Command (m for help): q

	$ docker run --device=/dev/sda:/dev/xvdc:m --rm -it ubuntu fdisk  /dev/xvdc
	fdisk: unable to open /dev/xvdc: Operation not permitted

Note: --device cannot be safely used with ephemeral devices. Block devices that may be removed should not be added to untrusted containers with --device.

A complete example:

$ docker run -d --name static static-web-files sh
$ docker run -d --expose=8098 --name riak riakserver
$ docker run -d -m 100m -e DEVELOPMENT=1 -e BRANCH=example-code -v $(pwd):/app/bin:ro --name app appserver
$ docker run -d -p 1443:443 --dns=10.0.0.1 --dns-search=dev.org -v /var/log/httpd --volumes-from static --link riak --link app -h www.sven.dev.org --name web webserver
$ docker run -t -i --rm --volumes-from web -w /var/log/httpd busybox tail -f access.log

This example shows five containers that might be set up to test a web application change:

  1. Start a pre-prepared volume image static-web-files (in the background) that has CSS, image and static HTML in it, (with a VOLUME instruction in the Dockerfile to allow the web server to use those files);
  2. Start a pre-prepared riakserver image, give the container name riak and expose port 8098 to any containers that link to it;
  3. Start the appserver image, restricting its memory usage to 100MB, setting two environment variables DEVELOPMENT and BRANCH and bind-mounting the current directory ($(pwd)) in the container in read-only mode as /app/bin;
  4. Start the webserver, mapping port 443 in the container to port 1443 on the Docker server, setting the DNS server to 10.0.0.1 and DNS search domain to dev.org, creating a volume to put the log files into (so we can access it from another container), then importing the files from the volume exposed by the static container, and linking to all exposed ports from riak and app. Lastly, we set the hostname to web.sven.dev.org so its consistent with the pre-generated SSL certificate;
  5. Finally, we create a container that runs tail -f access.log using the logs volume from the web container, setting the workdir to /var/log/httpd. The --rm option means that when the container exits, the container's layer is removed.

Restart policies

Use Docker‘s --restart to specify a container’s restart policy. A restart policy controls whether the Docker daemon restarts a container after exit. Docker supports the following restart policies:

$ docker run --restart=always redis

This will run the redis container with a restart policy of always so that if the container exits, Docker will restart it.

More detailed information on restart policies can be found in the Restart Policies (--restart) section of the Docker run reference page.

Adding entries to a container hosts file

You can add other hosts into a container's /etc/hosts file by using one or more --add-host flags. This example adds a static address for a host named docker:

    $ docker run --add-host=docker:10.180.0.1 --rm -it debian
    $$ ping docker
    PING docker (10.180.0.1): 48 data bytes
    56 bytes from 10.180.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=254 time=7.600 ms
    56 bytes from 10.180.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=254 time=30.705 ms
    ^C--- docker ping statistics ---
    2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 7.600/19.152/30.705/11.553 ms

Sometimes you need to connect to the Docker host from within your container. To enable this, pass the Docker host‘s IP address to the container using the --add-host flag. To find the host’s address, use the ip addr show command.

The flags you pass to ip addr show depend on whether you are using IPv4 or IPv6 networking in your containers. Use the following flags for IPv4 address retrieval for a network device named eth0:

$ HOSTIP=`ip -4 addr show scope global dev eth0 | grep inet | awk '{print \$2}' | cut -d / -f 1`
$ docker run  --add-host=docker:${HOSTIP} --rm -it debian

For IPv6 use the -6 flag instead of the -4 flag. For other network devices, replace eth0 with the correct device name (for example docker0 for the bridge device).

Setting ulimits in a container

Since setting ulimit settings in a container requires extra privileges not available in the default container, you can set these using the --ulimit flag. --ulimit is specified with a soft and hard limit as such: <type>=<soft limit>[:<hard limit>], for example:

    $ docker run --ulimit nofile=1024:1024 --rm debian ulimit -n
    1024

Note: If you do not provide a hard limit, the soft limit will be used for both values. If no ulimits are set, they will be inherited from the default ulimits set on the daemon. as option is disabled now. In other words, the following script is not supported: $ docker run -it --ulimit as=1024 fedora /bin/bash

save

Usage: docker save [OPTIONS] IMAGE [IMAGE...]

Save an image(s) to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)

  -o, --output=""    Write to a file, instead of STDOUT

Produces a tarred repository to the standard output stream. Contains all parent layers, and all tags + versions, or specified repo:tag, for each argument provided.

It is used to create a backup that can then be used with docker load

$ docker save busybox > busybox.tar
$ ls -sh busybox.tar
2.7M busybox.tar
$ docker save --output busybox.tar busybox
$ ls -sh busybox.tar
2.7M busybox.tar
$ docker save -o fedora-all.tar fedora
$ docker save -o fedora-latest.tar fedora:latest

It is even useful to cherry-pick particular tags of an image repository

$ docker save -o ubuntu.tar ubuntu:lucid ubuntu:saucy

search

Search Docker Hub for images

Usage: docker search [OPTIONS] TERM

Search the Docker Hub for images

  --automated=false    Only show automated builds
  --no-trunc=false     Don't truncate output
  -s, --stars=0        Only displays with at least x stars

See Find Public Images on Docker Hub for more details on finding shared images from the command line.

Note: Search queries will only return up to 25 results

start

Usage: docker start [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Start one or more stopped containers

  -a, --attach=false         Attach STDOUT/STDERR and forward signals
  -i, --interactive=false    Attach container's STDIN

stats

Usage: docker stats CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Display a live stream of one or more containers' resource usage statistics

  --help=false       Print usage
  --no-stream=false  Disable streaming stats and only pull the first result

Running docker stats on multiple containers

$ docker stats redis1 redis2
CONTAINER           CPU %               MEM USAGE/LIMIT     MEM %               NET I/O
redis1              0.07%               796 KB/64 MB        1.21%               788 B/648 B
redis2              0.07%               2.746 MB/64 MB      4.29%               1.266 KB/648 B

The docker stats command will only return a live stream of data for running containers. Stopped containers will not return any data.

Note: If you want more detailed information about a container's resource usage, use the API endpoint.

stop

Usage: docker stop [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Stop a running container by sending SIGTERM and then SIGKILL after a
grace period

  -t, --time=10      Seconds to wait for stop before killing it

The main process inside the container will receive SIGTERM, and after a grace period, SIGKILL.

tag

Usage: docker tag [OPTIONS] IMAGE[:TAG] [REGISTRYHOST/][USERNAME/]NAME[:TAG]

Tag an image into a repository

  -f, --force=false    Force

You can group your images together using names and tags, and then upload them to Share Images via Repositories.

top

Usage: docker top CONTAINER [ps OPTIONS]

Display the running processes of a container

unpause

Usage: docker unpause CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Unpause all processes within a container

The docker unpause command uses the cgroups freezer to un-suspend all processes in a container.

See the cgroups freezer documentation for further details.

version

Usage: docker version

Show the Docker version information.

Show the Docker version, API version, Git commit, Go version and OS/architecture of both Docker client and daemon. Example use:

$ docker version
Client version: 1.5.0
Client API version: 1.17
Go version (client): go1.4.1
Git commit (client): a8a31ef
OS/Arch (client): darwin/amd64
Server version: 1.5.0
Server API version: 1.17
Go version (server): go1.4.1
Git commit (server): a8a31ef
OS/Arch (server): linux/amd64

wait

Usage: docker wait CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Block until a container stops, then print its exit code.