I have a Docker container that I've created simply by installing Docker on Ubuntu and doing:
sudo docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash
I immediately started installing Java and some other tools, spent some time with it, and stopped the container by
exit
Then I wanted to add a volume and realised that this is not as straightforward as I thought it would be. If I use sudo docker -v /somedir run ...
then I end up with a fresh new container, so I'd have to install Java and do what I've already done before just to arrive at a container with a mounted volume.
All the documentation about mounting a folder from the host seems to imply that mounting a volume is something that can be done when creating a container. So the only option I have to avoid reconfiguring a new container from scratch is to commit the existing container to a repository and use that as the basis of a new one whilst mounting the volume.
Is this indeed the only way to add a volume to an existing container?
You can commit your existing container (that is create a new image from container’s changes) and then run it with your new mounts.
Example:
$ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
5a8f89adeead ubuntu:14.04 "/bin/bash" About a minute ago Exited (0) About a minute ago agitated_newton
$ docker commit 5a8f89adeead newimagename
$ docker run -ti -v "$PWD/somedir":/somedir newimagename /bin/bash
If it's all OK, stop your old container, and use this new one.
That´s it :)
We don't have any way to add volume in running container, but to achieve this objective you may use the below commands:
Copy files/folders between a container and the local filesystem:
docker cp [OPTIONS] CONTAINER:SRC_PATH DEST_PATH
docker cp [OPTIONS] SRC_PATH CONTAINER:DEST_PATH
For reference see:
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/cp/
I've successfully mount /home/<user-name>
folder of my host to the /mnt
folder of the existing (not running) container. You can do it in the following way:
Open configuration file corresponding to the stopped container, which can be found at /var/lib/docker/containers/99d...1fb/config.v2.json (may be config.json for older versions of docker). Find MountPoints section, which was empty in my case: "MountPoints":{}. Next replace the contents with something like this (you can copy proper contents from another container with proper settings):
"MountPoints":{"/mnt":{"Source":"/home/<user-name>","Destination":"/mnt","RW":true,"Name":"","Driver":"","Type":"bind","Propagation":"rprivate","Spec":{"Type":"bind","Source":"/home/<user-name>","Target":"/mnt"},"SkipMountpointCreation":false}}
or the same (formatted):
"MountPoints": {
"/mnt": {
"Source": "/home/<user-name>",
"Destination": "/mnt",
"RW": true,
"Name": "",
"Driver": "",
"Type": "bind",
"Propagation": "rprivate",
"Spec": {
"Type": "bind",
"Source": "/home/<user-name>",
"Target": "/mnt"
},
"SkipMountpointCreation": false
}
}
Restart the docker service: service docker restart
This works for me with Ubuntu 18.04.1 and Docker 18.09.0
systemctl stop docker.service
2. Edit config.v2.json
: vim <(jq . /var/lib/docker/containers/<container-ID>/config.v2.json)
3. Save updates to a file: :w config.v2.json
4. Exit vim: :q!
5. Update existing file: jq -c . config.v2.json > /var/lib/docker/containers/<container-ID>/config.v2.json
6. Start the docker engine: systemctl start docker.service
7. Start the container if necessary: docker start <container-name/ID>
8. Enjoy :-)
service docker restart
. I tried to docker restart <container>
then the new config is not picked up, and it's getting overwritten by the old config.
jq
will help pretty print the JSON so it's mroe human editable: cat config.v2.json | jq . > config.json
config.v2.json
by the container id in Docker version 20.10.7
Jérôme Petazzoni has a pretty interesting blog post on how to Attach a volume to a container while it is running. This isn't something that's built into Docker out of the box, but possible to accomplish.
As he also points out
This will not work on filesystems which are not based on block devices. It will only work if /proc/mounts correctly lists the block device node (which, as we saw above, is not necessarily true). Also, I only tested this on my local environment; I didn’t even try on a cloud instance or anything like that
YMMV
Unfortunately the switch option to mount a volume is only found in the run
command.
docker run --help
-v, --volume list Bind mount a volume (default [])
There is a way you can work around this though so you won't have to reinstall the applications you've already set up on your container.
Export your container docker container export -o ./myimage.docker mycontainer Import as an image docker import ./myimage.docker myimage Then docker run -i -t -v /somedir --name mycontainer myimage /bin/bash
docker container
isn't a valid command on 1.11.2 (which is the latest version that is supported by Synology as of this writing). I can't find any docs saying when it was added, though. In this case the first command is docker export -o ./myimage.docker mycontainer
.
docker commit
is much easier, see answer above stackoverflow.com/a/33956387/1260896
A note for using Docker Windows containers after I had to look for this problem for a long time!
Condiditions:
Windows 10
Docker Desktop (latest version)
using Docker Windows Container for image microsoft/mssql-server-windows-developer
Problem:
I wanted to mount a host dictionary into my windows container.
Solution as partially discripted here:
create docker container
docker run -d -p 1433:1433 -e sa_password=<STRONG_PASSWORD> -e ACCEPT_EULA=Y microsoft/mssql-server-windows-developer
go to command shell in container
docker exec -it <CONTAINERID> cmd.exe
create DIR
mkdir DirForMount
stop container
docker container stop <CONTAINERID>
commit container
docker commit <CONTAINERID> <NEWIMAGENAME>
delete old container
docker container rm <CONTAINERID>
create new container with new image and volume mounting
docker run -d -p 1433:1433 -e sa_password=<STRONG_PASSWORD> -e ACCEPT_EULA=Y -v C:\DirToMount:C:\DirForMount <NEWIMAGENAME>
After this i solved this problem on docker windows containers.
My answer will be little different. You can stop your container, add the volume and restart it. How to do it, follow the steps.
docker volume create ubuntu-volume
docker stop <container-name>
sudo docker run -i -t --mount source=ubuntu-volume,target=<target-path-in-container> ubuntu /bin/bash
Use symlink to the already mounted drive:
ln -s Source_path targer_path_which_is_already_mounted_on_the_running_docker
The best way is to copy all the files and folders inside a directory on your local file system by: docker cp [OPTIONS] CONTAINER:SRC_PATH DEST_PATH
SRC_PATH
is on container DEST_PATH
is on localhost
Then do docker-compose down
attach a volume to the same DEST_PATH
and run Docker containers by using docker-compose up -d
Add volume by following in docker-compose.yml
volumes:
- DEST_PATH:SRC_PATH
Success story sharing
newnameofcontainer
that this should probably be namednew_image_name
-- becausedocker commit
creates a new image on your system. Then in the following when you do adocker run
you actually use the name of the image that you want to run a new container from. The above works but just wanted to clarify for others that the placeholder newnameofcontainer above is actually the name for a new image. thanks! awesome answer. oh, you can see the newly created image from the first docker commit command usingdocker image ls
docker run -v /srv/a:/tmp ubuntu:14.04
is good.