How to run Nginx within a Docker container without halting

Question

I have Nginx installed on a Docker container  and am trying to run it like this   docker run -i -t -p 80 80 mydockerimage  usr sbin nginx   The problem is that the way Nginx works  is that the initial process immediately spawns a master Nginx process and some workers  and then quits  Since Docker is only watching the PID of the original command  the container then halts   How do I prevent the container from halting  I need to be able to tell it to bind to the first child process  or stop Nginx s initial process from exiting

User · Accepted Answer

nginx  like all well-behaved programs  can be configured not to self-daemonize   Use the daemon off configuration directive described in http   wiki nginx org CoreModule

User · Answer

It is also good idea to use supervisord or runit 1  for service management    1  https   github com phusion baseimage-docker

User · Answer

Here you have an example of a Dockerfile that runs nginx  As mentionned by Charles  it uses the daemon off configuration   https   github com darron docker-nginx-php5 blob master Dockerfile L17

User · Answer

Adding this command to Dockerfile can disable it   RUN echo  daemon off    gt  gt   etc nginx nginx conf

User · Answer

To expand on Charles Duffy s answer  Nginx uses the daemon off directive to run in the foreground   If it s inconvenient to put this in the configuration file  we can specify it directly on the command line  This makes it easy to run in debug mode  foreground  and directly switch to running in production mode  background  by changing command line args   To run in foreground   nginx -g  daemon off     To run in background   nginx

User · Answer

To expand on John s answer you can also use the Dockerfile CMD command as following  in case you want it to self start without additional args   CMD   nginx    -g    daemon off

User · Answer

For all who come here trying to run a nginx image in a docker   container  that will run as a service   As there is no whole Dockerfile  here is my whole Dockerfile solving the issue    Nice and working   Thanks to all answers here in order to solve the final nginx issue    FROM ubuntu 18 04 MAINTAINER stackoverfloguy  stackoverfloguy foo com  RUN apt-get update -y RUN apt-get install net-tools nginx ufw sudo -y RUN adduser --disabled-password --gecos    docker RUN adduser docker sudo RUN echo   sudo ALL  ALL  NOPASSWD ALL   gt  gt   etc sudoers USER docker RUN sudo ufw default allow incoming RUN sudo rm  etc nginx nginx conf RUN sudo rm  etc nginx sites-available default RUN sudo rm  var www html index nginx-debian html VOLUME  var log VOLUME  usr share nginx html VOLUME  etc nginx VOLUME  var run COPY conf nginx conf  etc nginx nginx conf COPY content    var www html  COPY Dockerfile  var www html COPY start sh  etc nginx start sh RUN sudo chmod  x  etc nginx start sh RUN sudo chmod -R 777  var www html EXPOSE 80 EXPOSE 443 ENTRYPOINT sudo nginx -c  etc nginx nginx conf -g  daemon off     And run it with     docker run -p 80 80 -p 443 443 -dit

User · Answer

Just FYI  as of today  22 October 2019  official Nginx docker images all have line    CMD   nginx    -g    daemon off      e g  https   github com nginxinc docker-nginx blob 23a990403d6dbe102bf2c72ab2f6a239e940e3c3 mainline alpine Dockerfile L117

User · Answer

To add Tomer and Charles answers    Syntax to run nginx in forground in Docker container using Entrypoint   ENTRYPOINT nginx -g  daemon off      Not directly related but to run multiple commands with Entrypoint   ENTRYPOINT  bin bash -x  myscripts myscript sh  amp  amp  nginx -g  daemon off

[linux] How to run Nginx within a Docker container without halting?

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