How to copy files from host to Docker container

Question

I am trying to build a backup and restore solution for the Docker containers that we work with   I have Docker base image that I have created  ubuntu base  and do not want have to rebuild it each time with a Docker file to add files to it   I want to create a script that runs from the host machine and creates a new container using the ubuntu base Docker image and then copies files into that container   How can I copy files from the host to the container

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Try docker cp   Usage   docker cp CONTAINER PATH HOSTPATH   It copies files folders from PATH to the HOSTPATH

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Where you don t have a directory defined as a volume in the Dockerfile  the  var lib docker aufs mnt   will work  But there are cases where the directory within the container is defined as a volume  In this case  the contents under aufs mnt    and the contents seen by the container are different   You will need to inspect the container using docker inspect  and then  look for volumes  There you will find a mention for something like  var lib docker vfs dir fe940b     the id   You will need to add modify the files here instead of under aufs mnt     The confusing part is that the files also appear under  aufs mnt    I spent quite a while scratching my head why changes here didn t work for me  Hope this helps someone

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The following is a fairly ugly way of doing it but it works   docker run -i ubuntu  bin bash -c  cat  gt  file   lt  file

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I simply copy the file directly from where the container is located from the host machine   For example   First find out the container id   root   3aed62678d54    home    And then from the host  let s say the file is in the home directory   root saasdock  home dnepangue  cp cheering nasa gif  var lib docker aufs mnt   3aed62678d54  a5df47a4a00a58bb0312009c2902f8a37498a1427052e8ac454b home    Back to the container     root   3aed62678d54    home  ls cheering nasa gif

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The simpliest way to achieve this is    Find the container id docker cp  lt filename gt   lt container-id gt   lt path gt

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I tried most of the  upvoted  solutions here but in docker 17 09  in 2018  there is no longer  var lib docker aufs folder   This simple docker cp solved this task   docker cp c  path to local file container name  path to target dir    How to get container name     docker ps    There is a NAMES section  Don t use aIMAGE

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The solution is given below   From the Docker shell   root 123abc  root    lt -- get the container ID   From the host  cp thefile txt  var lib docker devicemapper mnt 123abc lt bunch-o-hex gt  rootfs root   The file shall be directly copied to the location where the container sits on the filesystem

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This is a direct answer to the question  Copying files from host to Docker container  raised in this question in the title   Try docker cp  It is the easiest way to do that and works even on my Mac  Usage   docker cp  root some-file txt some-docker-container  root   This will copy the file some-file txt in the directory  root on your host machine into the Docker container named some-docker-container into the directory  root  It is very close to the secure copy syntax  And as shown in the previous post  you can use it vice versa  I e   you also copy files from the container to the host   And before you downlink this post  please enter docker cp --help  Reading the documentation can be very helpful  sometimes      If you don t like that way and you want data volumes in your already created and running container  then recreation is your only option today  See also How can I add a volume to an existing Docker container

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If the host is CentOS or Fedora  there is a proxy NOT in  var lib docker aufs  but it is under  proc   cp -r  home user mydata    proc   docker inspect --format     State Pid     lt containerid gt   root   This cmd will copy all contents of data directory to   of container with id  containerid

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With Docker 1 8  docker cp is able to copy files from host to container   See the Docker blog post Announcing Docker 1 8  Content Trust  Toolbox  and Updates to Registry and Orchestration

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Create a new dockerfile and use the existing image as your base   FROM myName myImage latest  ADD myFile py bin myFile py  Then build the container   docker build

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I just started using docker to compile VLC  here s what you can do to copy files back and forth from containers   su - cd  var lib docker ls -palR  gt   home user dockerfilelist txt   Search for a familiar file in that txt and you ll have the folder  cd to it as root and voila  copy all you want   There might be a path with  merged  in it  I guess you want the one with  diff  in it   Also if you exit the container and want to be back where you left off   docker ps -a docker start -i containerid   I guess that s usefull when you didn t name anything with a command like   docker run -it registry videolan org 5000 vlc-debian-win64  bin bash   Sure the hacker method but so what

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If you need to do this on a running container you can use docker exec  added in 1 3    First  find the container s name or ID     docker ps CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                        COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                   NAMES b9b7400ddd8f        ubuntu latest                  bin bash          2 seconds ago       Up 2 seconds                                elated hodgkin   In the example above we can either use b9b7400ddd8f or elated hodgkin   If you wanted to copy everything in  tmp somefiles on the host to  var www in the container     cd  tmp somefiles   tar -cv     docker exec -i elated hodgkin tar x -C  var www   We can then exec  bin bash in the container and verify it worked     docker exec -it elated hodgkin  bin bash root b9b7400ddd8f    ls  var www file1  file2

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I d mount and then run the image with a daemon  just any as given here   docker run -d -v  blah1 blah2  mnt --name mntcontainer ubuntu  bin sh -c  while true  do echo hello world  sleep 1  done    then  docker exec -it mntcontainer bash

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Assuming the container is already running  type the given command     cat  path to host file    docker exec -i -t  lt container id gt  bash -c   bin cat  gt   path to container file    To share files using shared directory  run the container by typing the given command     docker run -v  path to host dir  path to container dir       Note  Problems with permissions might arise as container s users are not the same as the host s users

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tar and docker cp are a good combo for copying everything in a directory   Create a data volume container  docker create --name dvc --volume  path on container cirros   To preserve the directory hierarchy  tar -c -C  path on local machine     docker cp - dvc  path on container   Check your work  docker run --rm --volumes-from dvc cirros ls -al  path on container

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Copy from container to host dir  docker cp  container-name id    app  index js  index js    assume you have created a workdir  app in your dockerfile   Copy from host to container   docker cp index js  container-name id    app index js

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To copy a file from host to running container  docker exec -i  CONTAINER  bin bash -c  cat  gt   CONTAINER PATH   lt   HOST PATH     Based on Erik s answer and Mikl s and z0r s comments

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In case it is not clear to someone like me what mycontainer in  h3nrik answer means  it is actually the container id   To copy a file WarpSquare mp4 in  app example scenes 1440p60 from an exited docker container to current folder I used this   docker cp  docker ps -q -l   app example scenes 1440p60 WarpSquare mp4     where docker ps -q -l pulls up the container id of the last exited instance  In case it is not an exited container you can get it by docker container ls or docker ps

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Get container name or short container id     docker ps  Get full container id     docker inspect -f       Id     SHORT CONTAINER ID-or-CONTAINER NAME  Copy file     sudo cp path-file-host  var lib docker aufs mnt FULL CONTAINER ID PATH-NEW-FILE    EXAMPLE     docker ps  CONTAINER ID      IMAGE    COMMAND       CREATED      STATUS       PORTS        NAMES  d8e703d7e303   solidleon ssh latest       usr sbin sshd -D                      cranky pare    docker inspect -f       Id    cranky pare   or    docker inspect -f       Id    d8e703d7e303  d8e703d7e3039a6df6d01bd7fb58d1882e592a85059eb16c4b83cf91847f88e5    sudo cp file txt  var lib docker aufs mnt   d8e703d7e3039a6df6d01bd7fb58d1882e592a85059eb16c4b83cf91847f88e5   root file txt

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Another solution for copying files into a running container is using tar   tar -c foo sh   docker exec -i theDockerContainer  bin tar -C  tmp -x   Copies the file foo sh into  tmp of the container   Edit  Remove reduntant -f  thanks to Maartens comment

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This is a onliner for copying a single file while running a tomcat container   docker run -v  PATH TO WAR sample war  usr local tomcat webapps myapp war -it -p 8080 8080 tomcat   This will copy the war file to webapps directory and get your app running in no time

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My favorite method   CONTAINERS   CONTAINER ID   docker ps   grep  lt string gt    awk    print  1      xargs docker inspect -f     Id       file txt  mv -f file txt  var lib docker devicemapper mnt  CONTAINER ID rootfs root file txt   or   mv -f file txt  var lib docker aufs mnt  CONTAINER ID rootfs root file txt

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One thing which I tried and it worked Once you spin up your docker container and if you create any file under that container  You can easily access that file from below location of your docker host - cd  var lib docker aufs containers container id tmp Try once

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In a docker environment  all containers are found in the directory    var lib docker aufs required-docker-id   To copy the source directory file to any part of the container  type the given command   sudo cp -r mydir   var lib docker aufs mnt required-docker-id mnt

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If using Windows as host  you can use WinSCP to connect to Docker and transfer files through the GUI   If on Linux  the scp command would also work through the terminal

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docker cp SRC PATH CONTAINER ID DEST PATH   For example  I want to copy my file xxxx download jenkins to tomcat  I start to get the id of the container Tomcat  docker ps  CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                    NAMES 63686740b488        tomcat               catalina sh run    12 seconds ago      Up 11 seconds       0 0 0 0 8080- gt 8080 tcp   peaceful babbage  docker cp xxxx download jenkins war  63686740b488 usr local tomcat webapps

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The cp command can be used to copy files    One specific file can be copied TO the container like   docker cp foo txt mycontainer  foo txt   One specific file can be copied FROM the container like   docker cp mycontainer  foo txt foo txt   For emphasis  mycontainer is a container ID  not an image ID   Multiple files contained by the folder src can be copied into the target folder using   docker cp src   mycontainer  target docker cp mycontainer  src   target   Reference  Docker CLI docs for cp   In Docker versions prior to 1 8 it was only possible to copy files from a container to the host  Not from the host to a container

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This is the command to copy data from Docker to Host   docker cp container id file path filename  hostpath  docker cp a13fb9c9e674  tmp dgController log  tmp    Below is the command to copy data from host to docker   docker cp a txt ccfbeb35116b  home

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Typically there are three types   From a container to the host docker cp container id   bar foo txt        From the host to a container docker exec -i container id sh -c  cat  gt    bar foo txt   lt    foo txt   Second approach to copy from host to container  docker cp foo txt mycontainer  foo txt      From a container to a container mixes 1 and 2 docker cp container id1   bar foo txt    docker exec -i container id2 sh -c  cat  gt    bar foo txt   lt    foo txt

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real deal is  docker volume create xdata docker volume inspect xdata   so you see its mount poit dir  just copy your stuff there then docker run  --name example1 --mount source xdata destination  xdata -it yessa bash  where yessa is image name

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Container Up Syntax  docker run -v  HOST folder  Container floder   In docker File COPY hom   myFolder           adds all files starting with  quot hom quot  COPY hom  txt  myFolder         is replaced with any single character  e g    quot home txt quot

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In my opinion you have not to copy files inside image but you can use GIT or SVN for your files and then set a volume synchronized with a local folder  Use a script while runing container who can check if data already exist in local folder if not copy it from GIT repository  That make your image very lightweight

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Many that find this question may actually have the problem of copying files into a Docker image while it is being created  I did    In that case  you can use the COPY command in the Dockerfile that you use to create the image   See the documentation

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You can just trace the IP address of your local machine using  ifconfig   Then just enter into your Docker container and type   scp user name ip address  path to the file destination   In any case if you don t have an SSH client and server installed  just install it using   sudo apt-get install openssh-server

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The cleanest way is to mount a host directory on the container when starting the container    host  docker run -v  path to hostdir  mnt --name my container my image  host  docker exec -it my container bash  container  cp  mnt sourcefile  path to destfile

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Docker cp command is a handy utility that allows to copy files and folders between a container and the host system  If you want to copy files from your host system to the container  you should use docker cp command like this  docker cp host source path container destination path  List your running containers first using docker ps command  abhishek linuxhandbook    sudo docker ps CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS                 PORTS               NAMES   8353c6f43fba        775349758637         quot bash quot               8 seconds ago       Up 7    seconds                            ubu container  You need to know either the container ID or the container name  In my case  the docker container name is ubu container  and the container ID is 8353c6f43fba  If you want to verify that the files have been copied successfully  you can enter your container in the following manner and then use regular Linux commands  docker exec -it ubu container bash  Copy files from host system to docker container Copying with docker cp is similar to the copy command in Linux  I am going to copy a file named a py to the home dir1 directory in the container  docker cp a py ubu container  home dir1  If the file is successfully copied  you won   t see any output on the screen  If the destination path doesn   t exist  you would see an error  abhishek linuxhandbook    sudo docker cp a txt ubu container  home dir2 subsub         Error  No such container path  ubu container  home dir2  If the destination file already exists  it will be overwritten without any warning  You may also use container ID instead of the container name  docker cp a py 8353c6f43fba  home dir1

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Another workaround is using the good old scp  This is useful in the case you need to copy a directory   From your host run   scp FILE PATH ON YOUR HOST IP CONTAINER DESTINATION PATH scp foo txt 172 17 0 2 foo txt   In the case you need to copy a directory   scp -r DIR PATH ON YOUR HOST IP CONTAINER DESTINATION PATH scp -r directory 172 17 0 2 directory   be sure to install ssh into your container too   apt-get install openssh-server

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To copy files folders between a container and the local filesystem  type the command   docker cp  SOURCE FILE   DESTINATION CONTAINER ID    DESTINATION PATH    For example   docker cp  home foo container-id  home dir   To get the contianer id  type the given command   docker ps   The above content is taken from docker com

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The best way for copying files to the container I found is mounting a directory on host using -v option of docker run command

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I usually create python server using this command      python -m SimpleHTTPServer   in the particular directory and then just use wget to transfer file in the desired location in docker  I know it is not the best way to do it but I find it much easier

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There are good answers  but too specific  I find out docker ps is good way to get container id you re interested in  Then do  mount   grep  lt id gt    to see where the volume is mounted  That s   var lib docker devicemapper mnt  lt id gt  rootfs    for me  but it might be a different path depending on the OS and configuration  Now simply copy files to that path   Using -v is not always practical

[docker] How to copy files from host to Docker container?

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