I would like to run a docker container that hosts a simple web application, however I do not understand how to design/run the image as a server. For example:
docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash
This will start and immediately shutdown the container. Instead we can start it interactively:
docker run -i -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash
This works, but now I have to keep open the interactive shell for every container that is running? I would rather just start it and have it running in the background. A hack would be using a command that never returns:
docker run -d -p 80:80 {image} tail -F /var/log/kern.log
But now I cannot connect to the shell anymore, to inspect what is going on if the application is acting up.
Is there a way to start the container in the background (as we would do for a vm), in a way that allows for attaching/detaching a shell from the host? Or am I completely missing the point?
The final argument to docker run is the command to run within the container. When you run docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash, you're running bash in the container and nothing more. You actually want to run your web application in a container and to keep that container alive, so you should do docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /path/to/yourapp.
But your application probably depends on some configuration in order to run. If it reads its configuration from environment variables, you can use the -e key=value arguments with docker run. If your application needs a configuration file to be in place, you should probably use a Dockerfile to set up the configuration first.
This article provides a nice complete example of running a node application in a container.
Users of docker tend to assume a container to be a complete a VM, while the docker design concept is more focused on optimal containerization rather than mimic the VM within a container.
Both are correct however some implementation details are not easy to get familiar with in the beginning. I am trying to summarize some of the implementational difference in a way that is easier to understand.
SSH
SSH would be the most straight-forward way to go inside a Linux VM (or container), however many dockerized templates do not have ssh server installed. I believe this is because of optimization & security reasons for the container.
docker attach
docker attach can be handy if working as out-of-the-box. However as of writing it is not stable - https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/8521. Might be associated with SSH set up, but not sure when it is completely fixed.
docker recommended practices (nsenter and etc)
Some alternatives (or best practices in some sense) recommended by Docker at https://blog.docker.com/2014/06/why-you-dont-need-to-run-sshd-in-docker/
This practice basically separates out mutable elements out of a container and maps them to some places in a docker host so they can be manipulated from outside of container and/or persisted. Could be a good practice in production environment but not now when more docker related projects are around dev and staging environment.
bash command line
"docker exec -it {container id} bash" cloud be very handy and practical tool to get in to the machine.
Some basics
"docker run" creates a new container so previous changes will not be saved.
"docker start" will start an existing container so previous changes will still be in the container, however you need to find the correct container-id among many with a same image-id. Need to "docker commit" to suppress versions if wanted.
Ctrl-C will stop the container when exiting. You will want to append "&" at the end so the container can run background and gives you the prompt when hitting enter key.
To the original question, you can tail some file, like you mentioned, to keep the process running.
To reach the shell, instead of "attach", you have two options:
docker exec -it <container_id> /bin/bash
Or
run ssh daemon in the container, port map the ssh and then ssh to container.
Related
I have a very simple dockerfile with only one row, namely "FROM ubuntu". I created an image from this dockerfile by the command docker build -t ubuntu_ .
I know that I can create a new docker container from this image an run it interactively with the command
docker run -it my_new_container
I can later start this new container with the command
start my_new container
As I understand it, I should also be able to use this container it interactively by
start -i my_new container
But, it does not work. It just runs and exits. I don't get to the container's command prompt as I do when I use run. What am I doing wrong?
If i understood correctly, you want to see the logs from container in terminal, same as when you run the image with docker run. If that's the case, then try with
docker start -a my_docker_container
You can enter a running container with:
docker exec -it <container name> /bin/bash
example:
docker exec -it my_new_container /bin/bash
you can replace bash with sh if bash is not available in the container.
and if you need to explicitly use a UID , like root = UID 0, you can specify this:
docker exec -it -u 0 my_new_container /bin/bash
which will log you as root
Direct answer:
To run an interactive shell for a non-running container, first find the image that the container is based on.
Then:
docker container run -it [yourImage] bash
If your eventual container is based on an alpine image, replace bash with sh.
Technically, this will create a NEW container, but it gets the job done.
EDIT [preferred method]:
An even better way is to give the container something irrelevant to do. A nice solution from the VSCode docs is to put the following command into your service definition of the docker-compose.yml file:
services:
my-app-service:
command: ["sleep", "infinity"]
# other relevant parts of your service def...
The idea here is that you're telling your container to sleep for some time (infinite amount of time). Ironically, this your container will have to maintain this state, forcing the container to keep running.
This is how I run containers. Best wishes to whomever needs this nugget of info. We're all learning :)
You cannot get a shell into a container in its stopped state, or restart it directly with another entry point. If the container keeps exiting and you need to examine it, the only option I know of is to commit the container as a new image and then start a new container with such image, as per a related answer.
If you don't need that container anymore and just want it to stay up, you should run it with a process that will not exit. An example with an Ubuntu image would be (you don't need a Dockerfile for this):
docker run -d ubuntu --name carrot tail -f /dev/null
You will see that this container stays up and you can now run bash on it, to access the CLI:
docker exec -ti carrot bash
If the container has stopped for whatever reason, such as a machine restart, you can bring it back up:
docker start carrot
And it will continue to stay up again.
I have a container with a docker-compose like this
services:
app:
build:
context: app
restart: always
version: '3.5'
It launches a node app docker-compose run -d --name my-app app node myapp.js
the app is made to either run to completion or throw, and then the goal would be to have docker restart it in an infinite loop, regardless of the exit code. I'm unsure why but it doesn't restart it.
How can I debug this? I have no clue what exit code node is sending, nor do I know which exit code docker uses to decide to restart or not.
I am also on mac, haven't tested on linux yet. Edit: It does restart on linux, don't have another mac to see if the behavior is isolated to my mac only.
It is important to understand the following two concepts:
Ending your Node app doesn't mean the end of your container. Your container runs a shared process from your OS and your Node app is only a sub process of that. (Assuming your application runs with the Deamon)
The restart indicates the "starting" policy - it will never terminate and start your container again.
Having said that, what you need is a way you can really restart your container from within the application. The best way to do this is via Docker healthchecks:
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#healthcheck
Or, here are some answers on restarting a container from within the application.
Stopping docker container from inside
From Github Issue seems like it does not respect `--restart``, or from the #Charlie comment seems like its vary from platform to platform.
The docker-compose run command is for running “one-off” or “adhoc” tasks.The run command acts like docker run -ti in that it opens an interactive terminal to the container and returns an exit status matching the exit status of the process in the container.
docker-compose run
Also if its like docker run -it then I am not seeing an option for restart=always but it should then respect ``restart` option in compose.
Usage:
run [options] [-v VOLUME...] [-p PORT...] [-e KEY=VAL...] [-l KEY=VALUE...]
SERVICE [COMMAND] [ARGS...]
Options:
-d, --detach Detached mode: Run container in the background, print
new container name.
--name NAME Assign a name to the container
--entrypoint CMD Override the entrypoint of the image.
-e KEY=VAL Set an environment variable (can be used multiple times)
-l, --label KEY=VAL Add or override a label (can be used multiple times)
-u, --user="" Run as specified username or uid
--no-deps Don't start linked services.
--rm Remove container after run. Ignored in detached mode.
-p, --publish=[] Publish a container's port(s) to the host
--service-ports Run command with the service's ports enabled and mapped
to the host.
--use-aliases Use the service's network aliases in the network(s) the
container connects to.
-v, --volume=[] Bind mount a volume (default [])
-T Disable pseudo-tty allocation. By default `docker-compose run`
allocates a TTY.
-w, --workdir="" Working directory inside the container
I can't start a container on Bluemix with Debian, Centos, Alpine or other. Is there a way or is it blocked?
Image from docker hub.
Is there any getting started for the run command ?
I suppose that i need a file for parameters.
Big difference between running a container in local docker vs in the container service is that all containers in the container service are effectively running -d (i.e. daemon/disconncted mode). If you're just using the base images you listed, most of those do not have a long running process in the container, and expect that you will be running it interactive.
Result of that is that in the container service, the container starts, then exits again because it's non-interactive, and there's no other process to keep it alive. You can try adding a wait as the "cmd" for it.
i.e. for your dockerfile:
FROM alpine
build that to your registry, then run with something like cf ic run --name alpinetest -m 512 registry.ng.bluemix.net/yourregistryhere/alpine sh -c "sleep 1000000"
Then, to get an interactive shell, you can exec into the container using cf ic exec -ti alpinetest /bin/sh
Obviously, to have it do something useful, you're probably going to want to put an actual server running in there as the foreground app, and set that as the CMD or ENTRYPOINT, but that'll give you access to it running to poke at.
Here is another question from a Docker newbie. I currently run my Docker image in "debugging mode" with bash so that I can docker attach to the running instance to enter a shell where I can inspect the application’s OS environment, etc., at runtime.
docker run <image-id> -d -it bash -c “<start application in background>; bash”
I am wondering whether I should have bash always included, i.e. change the CMD inside Dockerfile from CMD <start application in foreground> to CMD <start application in background>; bash.
Would this be inappropriate in "production mode"
for security reasons -- Who is allowed to attach to a running instance?,
in light of Docker being an application isolation tool, not an OS virtualization tool,
for other reasons?
Don't do this in production.
You want your app to be the front-most process (PID 1), not bash.
Ideally your dev containers would be the same as your production ones, so I wouldn't even use that bash approach in dev other than for a temporary testing situation. You can always docker exec into the container later if need be. E.g.,
docker exec -it {container-name} /bin/bash
Where:
> -i, --interactive Keep STDIN open even if not attached
> -t, --tty Allocate a pseudo-TTY
Change the name of the executable as needed (e.g., /bin/sh, etc.). You many need to set the TERM environment variable for some containers. (e.g., export TERM=xterm).
To just return a result and close, leave out the -it like:
docker exec {container-name} ifconfig
You want to get used to treating containers like set-and-forget -- or at least not something you need to access manually once it's in production.
I'm doing some initial tests with docker. At moment i have my images and I can put some containers running, with:
docker ps
I do docker attach container_id and start apache2 service.
Then from the main console I commit the container to the image.
After exiting the container, if I try to start the container or try to run one new container from the committed image, the service is always stopped.
How can create or restart one container with the services started, for example apache?
EDIT:
I've learned a lot about Docker since originally posting this answer. "Starting services automatically in Docker containers" is not a good usage pattern for Docker. Instead, use something like fleet, Kubernetes, or even Monit/SystemD/Upstart/Init.d/Cron to automatically start services that execute inside Docker containers.
ORIGINAL ANSWER:
If you are starting the container with the command /bin/bash, then you can accomplish this in the manner outlined here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19872810/2971199
So, if you are starting the container with docker run -i -t IMAGE /bin/bash and if you want to automatically start apache2 when the container is started, edit /etc/bash.bashrc in the container and add /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl -f /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf (or whatever your apache2 start command is) to a newline at the end of the file.
Save the changes to your image and restart it with docker run -i -t IMAGE /bin/bash and you will find apache2 running when you attach.
An option that you could use would to be use a process manager such as Supervisord to run multiple processes. Someone accomplished this with sshd and mongodb: https://github.com/justone/docker-mongodb
I guess you can't. What you can do is create an image using a Dockerfile and define a CMD in that, which will be executed when the container starts. See the builder documentation for the basics (https://docs.docker.com/reference/builder/) and see Run a service automatically in a docker container for information on keeping your service running.
You don't need to automate this using a Dockerfile. You could also create the image via a manual commit as you do, and run it command line. Then, you supply the command it should run (which is exactly what the Dockerfile CMD actually does). You can also override the Dockerfiles CMD in this way: only the latest CMD will be executed, which is the command line command if you start the container using one. The basic docker run -i -t base /bin/bash command from the documentation is an example. If your command becomes too long you could create a convenience script of course.
By design, containers started in detached mode exit when the root process used to run the container exits.
You need to start a Apache service in FOREGROUND mode.
docker run -p 8080:80 -d ubuntu/apache apachectl -D FOREGROUND
Reference: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/run/#detached-vs-foreground
Try to add start script to entrypoint in dockerfile like this;
ENTRYPOINT service apache2 restart && bash