Containers

Containers are the runnable version build out of images:

docker run debian /bin/echo ‘Hello world!’

Useful options for the run command are:

-it # interactive mode
-v <src>:<dst> # mount the <src> folder into <dst>
--name <name> # provide
-p <src>:<dst> # map a port from a container to the outside
--network="host" # use the hosts network

Containers run while the command specified runs. Once that command finished, the container is stopped. To keep a container running, you need to use the detach mode (-d).

Actions that can be done are:

docker start <container>
docker stop <container>
docker restart <container>

Important

If the container was run the first time with parameters like -v or -d (or any other), those are kept when you start the container again.

On running containers you can:

docker exec <container> <cmd> <opts> # execute a command
docker logs <container>  # show logs of container
docker inspect <container>

Note

Docker logging drivers allow to set a logging policy to forward the logs to the corresponding driver (syslog, journald, …).

Containers can be managed as:

docker ps # list running containers
docker ps -a # list all containers
docker rm <container>
docker export <container> > <container>.tar