Top Docker Commands Any Expert Should Know

Docker is an evolving system with developers proactively working to improve usage and performance. So the commands are always changing. Docker commands often get deprecated and replaced with new or more efficient ones. You can use the help option to check the latest available commands on your Docker installation:

$ docker --help

To check options for a particular command, you can use the help option for that command. For example, in order to check the docker run command options, you can use the following:

$ docker run --help

As a Docker expert, there are certain tasks you have to perform regularly. So, we'll organize the information into smaller parts. It will give you better context for running the various commands.

At the moment, there are 13 management commands and 41 general commands. Here are the top Docker commands we are going to use for our lessons:

• docker attach - Attaches your local input/output/error stream to a running container.
• docker commit  - Creates a new image from the current changed state of the container.
• docker exec- Runs a command in a container that is active or running.
• docker history- Displays the history of an image.
• docker info- Shows system-wide information.
• docker inspect- Finds system-level information about docker containers and images.
• docker login- Logins to local registry or Docker Hub.
• docker pull- Pulls an image or a repository from your local registry or Docker Hub.
• docker ps- Lists various properties of containers.
• docker restart- Stops and starts a container.
• docker rm- Remove containers.
• docker rmi- Remove images
• docker run- Runs a command in an isolated container.
• docker search- Searches the Docker Hub for images.
• docker start- Starts already stopped containers.
• docker stop- Stops running containers.
• docker version- Provides docker version information.

You can find more detailed descriptions here.

Let's dive into the various actions that you can perform with these Docker commands.

Note: For partial information dumps, we have used three dots (...).

Finding Docker Version and System Information

Whether you are working on your own machine or working on the cloud, you'll often need to check the Docker version and the Docker system information. You can find out your Docker version using the command:

$ docker version

Client:
Version: 18.03.0-ce
API version: 1.37
Go version: go1.9.4
Git commit: 0520e24
Built: Wed Mar 21 23:06:22 2018
OS/Arch: darwin/amd64
Experimental: false
Orchestrator: swarm

Server:
Engine:
Version: 18.03.0-ce
API version: 1.37 (minimum version 1.12)
Go version: go1.9.4
Git commit: 0520e24
Built: Wed Mar 21 23:14:32 2018
OS/Arch: linux/amd64
Experimental: true

Another important command is docker info:

$ docker info

Containers: 0
Running: 0
Paused: 0
Stopped: 0
Images: 0
Server Version: 18.03.0-ce
Storage Driver: overlay2
Backing Filesystem: extfs
Supports d_type: true
Native Overlay Diff: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins:
Volume: local
Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file logentries splunk syslog

…

It will show you various important information like Server Version, Storage Driver, Kernel Version, Operating System, Total Memory and more. The information can be useful when you are trying to spin up new resources for your current Docker installation or trying to figure out a system-level resource allocation problem. It is also a quick way to check the number of running, paused and stopped containers and the number of images downloaded to your system.

Searching and Downloading Docker Images

You can search for already available images on Docker Hub with the docker search  command.

$ docker search ubuntu

NAME DESCRIPTION STARS OFFICIAL AUTOMATED
ubuntu Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux operating sys… 7861 [OK]
dorowu/ubuntu-desktop-lxde-vnc Ubuntu with openssh-server and NoVNC 190 [OK]
rastasheep/ubuntu-sshd Dockerized SSH service, built on top of offi… 156 [OK]
ansible/ubuntu14.04-ansible Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with ansible 93 [OK]
ubuntu-upstart Upstart is an event-based replacement for th… 87 [OK]
neurodebian NeuroDebian provides neuroscience research s… 50 [OK]

…

The above search for  ubuntu is showing the available images and their descriptions, stars, official statuses, and automated statuses. The stars, official and automated statuses are useful ways to figure out the reputation of the image.

Let's download the most reputable ubuntu image. You can use the docker pull command:

$ docker pull ubuntu

Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from library/ubuntu
6b98dfc16071: Pull complete
4001a1209541: Pull complete
6319fc68c576: Pull complete
b24603670dc3: Pull complete
97f170c87c6f: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:5f4bdc3467537cbbe563e80db2c3ec95d548a9145d64453b06939c4592d67b6d
Status: Downloaded newer image for ubuntu:latest
$

Playing Around With Docker Images

You can use the docker info command to find out the number of images you have:

$ docker info

Containers: 0
Running: 0
Paused: 0
Stopped: 0
Images: 1
…

But the docker imagescommand will list in detail the images you have:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ubuntu              latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB

Suppose you decide to download an NGINX image. You can just run another docker pull  command:

$ docker pull nginx

Now if you check your Docker images, you'll see something like this:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ubuntu              latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB
nginx               latest              cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         109MB

You can find out more about these images here:

• Docker Hub Official Repositories

• ubuntu

• nginx

You can use these pages to find out a particular version of an image. On the Ubuntu page, you'll notice that the latest version of Ubuntu is 18.04. If you are looking for 16.04 version of Ubuntu, you can use the 16.04 tag to download that particular version:

$ docker pull ubuntu:16.04

Then you'll have two Ubuntu image versions on your machine:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ubuntu              16.04               5e8b97a2a082        2 weeks ago         114MB
ubuntu              latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB
nginx               latest              cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         109MB

Note: You don't need to register with Docker Hub to pull images. But if you want to push images to Docker Hub, you'll need to register and then login using the docker login command:

$ docker login --username=yourhubusername --email=youremail@company.com

Running Docker Container for Images

Let's suppose you want to run an NGINX server on docker. Run the following command:

$ docker run -p 8080:80 nginx

You have used the run command to create an NGINX container from the nginx image that you previously pulled from Docker Hub. The '-p 8080:80' is telling Docker to map your localhost port 8080 to Docker container's port 80. You should be able to access you NGINX server from http://localhost:8080.

The NGINX container is attached to your command line. So if you exit the command line, the container will die. You can start the NGINX container with the detach ('-d') option, so it can keep running even if you exit the command line.

$ docker run -p 8080:80 -d nginx

The above command will start the container in the detached mode and return back to the command line.

List Docker Containers with the docker ps Command

The docker ps command allows you to look up all the containers you are running.

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID         IMAGE         COMMAND         CREATED           STATUS          PORTS             NAMES
6162daed25da         nginx  "nginx -g 'daemon of…" 7 minutes ago   Up 7 minutes  0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp  hardcore_torvalds

It shows the various properties of the containers. You can see that it has been created from the nginx image and the port forwarding information is also shown. The CONTAINER ID and NAMES property require special mention. You can use these properties to uniquely identify the containers. Both of these properties are auto-generated. But you can also name the container during the container creation process. Let's create an NGINX container with the name "my_nginx":

$ docker run --name my_nginx -p 8888:80 -d nginx

Let's list Docker containers again:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED              STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
e7b19b6ad778        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute   0.0.0.0:8888->80/tcp   my_nginx
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   15 minutes ago       Up 16 minutes       0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

Notice the new container has the name "my_nginx". When you are dealing with a lot of containers, you can use a naming convention. This will help you better organize the containers.

The docker ps  command only shows running containers. If you use the docker info   command for the above case:

$ docker info

Containers: 2
Running: 2
Paused: 0
Stopped: 0
Images: 3
…

You can see that there are 2 containers running. If you have a paused or stopped container, you will not see those containers with the docker ps command only. You'll have to use the all ( '-a') option:

$ docker ps -a

Starting, Stopping, Restarting and Killing Containers

You can start and stop containers with use of next Docker commands.

Suppose, you want to stop the 'my_nginx' container. You can either use the CONTAINER ID or the NAME. In this case, let's use the name:

$ docker stop my_nginx

my_nginx

Let's list Docker containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   27 minutes ago      Up 27 minutes       0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

$ docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                          PORTS                  NAMES
e7b19b6ad778        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   12 minutes ago      Exited (0) About a minute ago                          my_nginx
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   27 minutes ago      Up 27 minutes                   0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

If you run docker ps without the  -a  option, it only shows the running container. In the second case, you can see that the 'my_nginx' container is in exited status.

Let's docker start   container:

$ docker start my_nginx

my_nginx

If you check the list of Docker containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
e7b19b6ad778        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   16 minutes ago      Up 29 seconds       0.0.0.0:8888->80/tcp   my_nginx
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   30 minutes ago      Up 30 minutes       0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

You can see that STATUS is showing that the container 'my_nginx' is up again.

If you want to stop and start a container due to some issue, you can use the restart command. It's faster than stopping and starting the containers individually:

$ docker restart my_nginx

You can kill a docker container like a process. Let's kill the 'my_nginx' container:

$ docker kill my_nginx

List Docker containers again:

$ docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                       PORTS                  NAMES
e7b19b6ad778        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   22 minutes ago      Exited (137) 7 seconds ago                          my_nginx
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   36 minutes ago      Up 36 minutes                0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

The container my_nginx is not operating. Also, you can see in the info that you have a running container and a stopped container:

$ docker info

Containers: 2
Running: 1
Paused: 0
Stopped: 1
Images: 3

…

Use the start or restart Docker commands to start the killed container.

Docker Exec Bash and Docker SSH into Container

You'll often need to interact with a container's shell to create a service or solve problems. You can use the docker exec command to create an interactive shell. Let's start a container from the ubuntu image with a bash shell:

$ docker run --name my_ubuntu -it ubuntu:latest bash

root@a19c770b8621:/#

The root@hash#  means that you are in the bash shell of the Docker container. You can run shell commands:

root@a19c770b8621:/# ls

bin boot dev etc home lib lib64 media mnt opt proc root run sbin srv sys tmp usr var
root@a19c770b8621:/# pwd

/

From another command prompt of your local machine, you can list Docker containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED              STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
a19c770b8621        ubuntu:latest       "bash"                   About a minute ago   Up About a minute                          my_ubuntu
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   About an hour ago    Up About an hour    0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

You can see 'my_ubuntu' is running. Suppose you want to Docker ssh into container 'my_ubuntu'. You can use the docker exec   bash method:

$ docker exec -it my_ubuntu bash

root@a19c770b8621:/#

Notice the CONTAINER ID and hash of the command prompt matches. So your effort to docker SSH into container 'my_ubuntu' was successful.

Use docker exec   to issue commands into your container. For example, you can run the ls  command on your 'my_ubuntu' docker container directly from the command prompt:

$ docker exec -it my_ubuntu ls

bin dev home lib64 mnt proc run srv tmp var
boot etc lib media opt root sbin sys usr

Launching Containers in Detached Mode and Using docker attach

In the above example, you started the ubuntu container in attached mode. Instead, you can start it in a detached mode:

$ docker run -it -d --name my_ubuntu_2 ubuntu:latest bash

75b28b7208359137b3e1dc2843387918e28b4c6c4860ef0cdeac79c205f5cbc4

Verify the container is running:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
75b28b720835        ubuntu:latest       "bash"                   3 minutes ago       Up 3 minutes                               my_ubuntu_2
a19c770b8621        ubuntu:latest       "bash"                   15 minutes ago      Up 15 minutes                              my_ubuntu
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   2 hours ago         Up 2 hours          0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

Use the docker attach command to get the docker exec   bash-like effect:

$ docker attach my_ubuntu_2

root@75b28b720835:/#

Checking History of Docker Image

The Docker community builds the docker images. These images are created in layers. You can use the Docker history command to see how the images were created. Let's first find out what images you have:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
ubuntu              16.04               5e8b97a2a082        2 weeks ago         114MB
ubuntu              latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB
nginx               latest              cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         109MB

Let's check the history of 'nginx' image:

$ docker history nginx

IMAGE               CREATED             CREATED BY                                      SIZE                COMMENT
cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  CMD ["nginx" "-g" "daemon…   0B                  
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  STOPSIGNAL [SIGTERM]         0B                  
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  EXPOSE 80/tcp                0B                  
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c ln -sf /dev/stdout /var/log/nginx…   22B                 
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c set -x  && apt-get update  && apt…   53.7MB              
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV NJS_VERSION=1.15.0.0.…   0B                  
<missing>           2 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV NGINX_VERSION=1.15.0-…   0B                  
<missing>           7 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  LABEL maintainer=NGINX Do…   0B                  
<missing>           8 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  CMD ["bash"]                 0B                  
<missing>           8 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) ADD file:ec5be7eec56a74975…   55.3MB

You can use the history command of the image to find out what changes happened recently. If you notice a problem after spinning up a container from a new version of an image you were already using, this command can help you find the cause. Alternatively, you can use the following version of the command too:

$ docker image history nginx

Docker Inspect Containers

You can use the docker inspect command to find out low-level information about your system. Run the docker ps command to list Docker containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   2 hours ago         Up 2 hours          0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

Let's use the CONTAINER ID to inspect the container (You can use the container name also):

$ docker inspect 6162daed25da

[
{
"Id": "6162daed25da50b98afca5f7ed8caca2289bf309b2547d87ae8674b899d604a4",
"Created": "2018-06-25T05:46:37.902211302Z",
"Path": "nginx",
"Args": [

…
…
…

"DriverOpts": null
}
}
}
}
]

The command will provide a lot of information in a JSON format. Here is a trick to find the IP address of a container:

$ docker inspect 6162daed25da | grep "IPAddress"

            "SecondaryIPAddresses": null,
            "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
                    "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",

Using docker cp to Copy Files from Your Local Machine to a Container

Let's list Docker containers:

$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                  NAMES
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   3 hours ago         Up 3 hours          0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp   hardcore_torvalds

The NGINX container is running on port 8080. So, if you go to http://localhost:8080, you will see the following:

"Welcome to nginx!"

If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required. For online documentation and support please refer to nginx.org.
Commercial support is available at nginx.com. Thank you for using nginx.

Let's create this index.html in your local directory:

<html>
<Header><title>My Website</title></header>
<body>
Hello world
</body>
</html>

Let's check the folder that has the index.html file in the NGINX container using docker exec command with ls:

$ docker exec -it hardcore_torvalds ls /usr/share/nginx/html

50x.html index.html

Overwrite the container's index.html file with the local file you created:

$ docker cp index.html hardcore_torvalds:usr/share/nginx/html/

Now if you check http://localhost:8080 again, you should see the greeting "Hello world".

You can use the docker cp command to move files between your local machine and the containers you create. This method can be used to overwrite configuration files or other assets.

Creating Your Own Docker Images

Suppose you want to create future containers from the "Hello World" container you created. But you can only spin containers from images. In order to make more "Hello World" containers, you have to save the current "Hello World"container as an image.

First, stop the container:

$ docker stop hardcore_torvalds

Now list all Docker containers:

$ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                         PORTS               NAMES
75b28b720835        ubuntu:latest       "bash"                   About an hour ago   Exited (0) About an hour ago                       my_ubuntu_2
a19c770b8621        ubuntu:latest       "bash"                   2 hours ago         Exited (0) About an hour ago                       my_ubuntu
6162daed25da        nginx               "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   3 hours ago         Exited (0) 27 seconds ago                          hardcore_torvalds

From the STATUS, you can see that the NGINX 'hardcore_torvalds' container is stopped. Use the docker commitcommand to create a new image:

$ docker commit 6162daed25da nginx_hello_world_template

sha256:117d060587a316035ed5a776e613d9cfbeee9fbfe202c6edc9203820c7da987b

Now if you check the images, you'll see the new image:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY                   TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
nginx_hello_world_template   latest              117d060587a3        40 seconds ago      109MB
ubuntu                       16.04               5e8b97a2a082        2 weeks ago         114MB
ubuntu                       latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB
nginx                        latest              cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         109MB

You can use this image just like other images and spin up new Docker containers. Instead of the "Welcome NGINX" page, the newly created containers will have the "Hello world" page. Example use:

$ docker run -it -d -p 8886:80 nginx_hello_world_template

4e042d76c39125471951626ba42cd609a65c73f041943298f74f4fc43dc5596a
$

Removing Docker Containers and Images

Docker containers and images take up space on your hard disk, so it's a good idea to clean them periodically. Let's first stop all the Docker containers and then list all the containers, we will use these next Docker commands to perform this:

$ docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                        COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                         PORTS               NAMES
4e042d76c391        nginx_hello_world_template   "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   2 minutes ago       Exited (0) 8 seconds ago                           boring_keldysh
75b28b720835        ubuntu:latest                "bash"                   2 hours ago         Exited (0) About an hour ago                       my_ubuntu_2
a19c770b8621        ubuntu:latest                "bash"                   2 hours ago         Exited (0) About an hour ago                       my_ubuntu
6162daed25da        nginx                        "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   3 hours ago         Exited (0) 11 minutes ago                          hardcore_torvalds

There are 4 containers in stopped state. You can use the docker rm command to remove containers:

$ docker rm 4e042d76c391 75b28b720835 a19c770b8621 6162daed25da

4e042d76c391
75b28b720835
a19c770b8621
6162daed25da

Instead of the CONTAINER ID, you can also use the NAMES. Your container list should be clean now:

$ docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES

Let's list Docker images:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY                   TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
nginx_hello_world_template   latest              117d060587a3        11 minutes ago      109MB
ubuntu                       16.04               5e8b97a2a082        2 weeks ago         114MB
ubuntu                       latest              113a43faa138        2 weeks ago         81.2MB
nginx                        latest              cd5239a0906a        2 weeks ago         109MB

You can remove the docker images using the  docker rmi command and IMAGE IDs:

$ docker rmi 117d060587a3 5e8b97a2a082 113a43faa138 cd5239a0906a

Now your Docker images list should be clean:

$ docker images

REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE

Congratulations!

Hopefully, this mini-guide will help you gain confidence in using all the top Docker commands. Use this article as a how-to guide to practice regularly and the commands will become second nature to you.