How do I get into a Docker container s shell

Question

I m getting started working with Docker  I m using the WordPress base image and docker-compose   I m trying to ssh into one of the containers to inspect the files directories that were created during the initial build  I tried to run docker-compose run containername ls -la  but that didn t do anything  Even if it did  I d rather have a console where I can traverse the directory structure  rather than run a single command  What is the right way to do this with Docker

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Notice  this answer promotes a tool I ve written   I ve created a containerized SSH server that you can  stick  to any running container  This way you can create compositions with every container  The only requirement is that the container has Bash   The following example would start an SSH server attached to a container with name  my-container    docker run -d -p 2222 22     -v  var run docker sock  var run docker sock     -e CONTAINER my-container -e AUTH MECHANISM noAuth     jeroenpeeters docker-ssh  ssh localhost -p 2222   When you connect to this SSH service  with your SSH client of choice  a Bash session will be started in the container with name  my-container    For more pointers and documentation see  https   github com jeroenpeeters docker-ssh

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docker exec will definitely be a solution  An easy way to work with the question you asked is by mounting the directory inside Docker to the local system s directory   So that you can view the changes in local path instantly   docker run -v  Users  lt path gt    lt container path gt

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If you re here looking for a Docker Compose-specific answer like I was  it provides an easy way in without having to look up the generated container ID   docker-compose exec takes the name of the service as per your docker-compose yml file   So to get a Bash shell for your  web  service  you can do     docker-compose exec web bash

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There are at least 2 options depending on the target  Option 1  Create a new bash process and join into it  easier   Sample start  docker exec -it  lt containername gt   bin bash Quit  type exit Pro  Does work on all containers  not depending on CMD Entrypoint  Contra  Creates a new process with own session and own environment-vars  Option 2  Attach to the already running bash  better   Sample start  docker attach --detach-keys ctrl-d  lt containername gt  Quit  use keys ctrl and d Pro  Joins the exact same running bash which is in the container  You have same the session and same environment-vars  Contra  Only works if CMD Entrypoint is an interactive bash like CMD   quot  bin bash quot   or CMD   quot  bin bash quot    quot --init-file quot    quot myfile sh quot   AND if container has been started with interactive options like docker run -itd  lt image gt   -i interactive  -t tty and -d deamon  opt    We found option 2 more useful  For example we changed apache2-foreground to a normal background apache2 and started a bash after that

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If you are using Docker Compose then this will take you inside a Docker container   docker-compose run container name  bin bash   Inside the container it will take you to WORKDIR defined in the Dockerfile  You can change your work directory by  WORKDIR directory path   E g   usr src - gt  container s path

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If you re using Docker on Windows and want to get shell access to a container  use this   winpty docker exec -it  lt container id gt  sh   Most likely  you already have Git Bash installed  If you don t  make sure to install it

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To connect to cmd in a Windows container  use  docker exec -it d8c25fde2769 cmd   Where d8c25fde2769 is the container id

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Use   docker attach  lt container name id here gt    The other way  albeit there is a danger to it  is to use attach  but if you Ctrl   C to exit the session  you will also stop the container  If you just want to see what is happening  use docker logs -f       docker attach --help Usage   docker attach  OPTIONS  CONTAINER  Attach to a running container  Options        --detach-keys string   Override the key sequence for detaching a container       --help                 Print usage       --no-stdin             Do not attach STDIN       --sig-proxy            Proxy all received signals to the process  default true

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Let s say  for reasons that are your own  you really do want to use SSH  It takes a few steps  but it can be done  Here are the commands that you would run inside the container to set it up     apt-get update apt-get install openssh-server  mkdir  var run sshd chmod 0755  var run sshd  usr sbin sshd  useradd --create-home --shell  bin bash --groups sudo username    includes  sudo  passwd username    Enter a password  apt-get install x11-apps    X11 demo applications  optional  ifconfig   awk   inet addr  print substr  2 6       Display IP address  optional    Now you can even run graphical applications  if they are installed in the container  using X11 forwarding to the SSH client   ssh -X username IPADDRESS xeyes    run an X11 demo app in the client   Here are some related resources    openssh-server doesn t start in Docker container How to get bash or ssh into a running container in background mode  Can you run GUI applications in a Docker container  Other useful approaches for graphical access found with search  Docker X11 If you run SSHD in your Docker containers  you re doing it wrong

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GOINSIDE SOLUTION  install goinside command line tool with   sudo npm install -g goinside   and go inside a docker container with a proper terminal size with   goinside docker container name     old answer  We ve put this snippet in    profile   goinside        docker exec -it  1 bash -c  stty cols  COLUMNS rows  LINES  amp  amp  bash     export -f goinside   Not only does this make everyone able to get inside a running container with   goinside containername   It also solves a long lived problem about fixed Docker container terminal sizes  Which is very annoying if you face it   Also if you follow the link you ll have command completion for your docker container names too

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It is simple   List out all your Docker images   sudo docker images   On my system it showed the following output   REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             VIRTUAL SIZE bash                latest              922b9cc3ea5e        9 hours ago 14 03 MB ubuntu              latest              7feff7652c69        5 weeks ago         81 15 MB   I have two Docker images on my PC  Let s say I want to run the first one   sudo docker run -i -t ubuntu latest  bin bash   This will give you terminal control of the container  Now you can do all type of shell operations inside the container  Like doing ls will output all folders in the root of the file system   bin  boot  dev  etc  home  lib  lib64  media  mnt  opt  proc  root  run  sbin  srv  sys  tmp  usr  var

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If the container has already exited  maybe due to some error   you can do    docker run --rm -it --entrypoint  bin ash image name   or    docker run --rm -it --entrypoint  bin sh image name   or    docker run --rm -it --entrypoint  bin bash image name   to create a new container and get a shell into it  Since you specified --rm  the container would be deleted when you exit the shell

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To bash into a running container  type this   docker exec -t -i container name  bin bash   or  docker exec -ti container name  bin bash   or  docker exec -ti container name sh

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SSH into a Docker container using this command   sudo docker exec -i -t  container ID  bash

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In some cases your image can be Alpine-based  In this case it will throw      OCI runtime exec failed  exec failed  container linux go 348  starting   container process caused  exec    bash    executable file not found in    PATH   unknown   Because  bin bash doesn t exist  Instead of this you should use   docker exec -it 9f7d99aa6625 ash   or  docker exec -it 9f7d99aa6625 sh

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Another option is to use nsenter   PID   docker inspect --format    State Pid    lt container name or ID gt   nsenter --target  PID --mount --uts --ipc --net --pid

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In my case  for some reason s  I need to check all the network involved information in each container  So the following commands must be valid in a container     ip route netstat ps       I checked through all these answers  none were helpful for me  I   ve searched information in other websites  I won   t add a super link here  since it   s not written in English  So I just put up this post with a summary solution for people who have the same requirements as me    Say you have one running container named light-test  Follow the steps below     docker inspect light-test -f    NetworkSettings SandboxKey    This command will get reply like  var run docker netns xxxx  Then ln -s  var run docker netns xxxx   var run netns xxxx  The directory may not exist  do mkdir  var run netns first  Now you may execute ip netns exec xxxx ip addr show to explore network world in container     PS  xxxx is always the same value received from the first command  And of course  any other commands are valid  i e  ip netns exec xxxx netstat -antp grep 8080

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docker attach will let you connect to your Docker container  but this isn t really the same thing as ssh   If your container is running a webserver  for example  docker attach will probably connect you to the stdout of the web server process   It won t necessarily give you a shell   The docker exec command is probably what you are looking for  this will let you run arbitrary commands inside an existing container   For example   docker exec -it  lt mycontainer gt  bash   Of course  whatever command you are running must exist in the container filesystem   In the above command  lt mycontainer gt  is the name or ID of the target container   It doesn t matter whether or not you re using docker compose  just run docker ps and use either the ID  a hexadecimal string displayed in the first column  or the name  displayed in the final column    E g   given     docker ps d2d4a89aaee9        larsks mini-httpd    mini httpd -d  cont   7 days ago          Up 7 days                               web                    I can run     docker exec -it web ip addr 1  lo   lt LOOPBACK UP LOWER UP gt  mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN      link loopback 00 00 00 00 00 00 brd 00 00 00 00 00 00     inet 127 0 0 1 8 scope host lo        valid lft forever preferred lft forever     inet6   1 128 scope host         valid lft forever preferred lft forever 18  eth0   lt BROADCAST UP LOWER UP gt  mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP      link ether 02 42 ac 11 00 03 brd ff ff ff ff ff ff     inet 172 17 0 3 16 scope global eth0        valid lft forever preferred lft forever     inet6 fe80  42 acff fe11 3 64 scope link         valid lft forever preferred lft forever   I could accomplish the same thing by running     docker exec -it d2d4a89aaee9 ip addr   Similarly  I could start a shell in the container     docker exec -it web sh     echo This is inside the container  This is inside the container      exit

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For docker-compose up  Docker4Drupal   docker-compose exec php bash   I use Docker for Drupal on a Linux laptop  After running the container I use  docker-compose exec php bash  to connect with the container so I can run drush commandos  It works fine for me

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you can interact with the terminal in docker container by passing the option -ti  docker run --rm -ti  lt image-name gt  eg  docker run --rm -ti ubuntu   -t stands for terminal -i stands for interactive

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To inspect files  run docker run -it  lt image gt   bin sh to get an interactive terminal  The list of images can be obtained by docker images  In contrary to docker exec this solution works also in case when an image doesn t start  or quits immediately after running

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I ve created a terminal function for easier access to the container s terminal  Maybe it s useful to you guys as well   So the result is  instead of typing   docker exec -it  container id   bin bash   you ll write   dbash  container id    Put the following in your    bash profile  or whatever else that works for you   then open a new terminal window and enjoy the shortcut    usage  dbash  container id  dbash         docker exec -it   1   bin bash

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docker exec -it  lt Container-Id gt   bin bash   Or depending on the shell  it can be     docker exec -it  lt Container-Id gt   bin sh   You can get the container-Id via docker ps command  -i   interactive  -t   to allocate a psuedo-TTY

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To exec into a running container named test  below is the following commands  If the container has bash shell  docker exec -it test  bin bash   If the container has bourne shell and most of the cases it s present   docker run -it test  bin sh

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Use this command   docker exec -it containerid  bin bash

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If you have Docker installed with Kitematic  you can use the GUI  Open Kitematic from the Docker icon and in the Kitematic window select your container  and then click on the exec icon   You can see the container log and lots of container information  in settings tab  in this GUI too

[docker] How do I get into a Docker container's shell?

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