docker create

create

Creates a new container.

Usage: docker create [OPTIONS] IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]

Create a new container

  -a, --attach=[]               Attach to STDIN, STDOUT or STDERR
  --add-host=[]                 Add a custom host-to-IP mapping (host:ip)
  --blkio-weight=0              Block IO weight (relative weight)
  --blkio-weight-device=[]      Block IO weight (relative device weight, format: `DEVICE_NAME:WEIGHT`)
  --cpu-shares=0                CPU shares (relative weight)
  --cap-add=[]                  Add Linux capabilities
  --cap-drop=[]                 Drop Linux capabilities
  --cgroup-parent=""            Optional parent cgroup for the container
  --cidfile=""                  Write the container ID to the file
  --cpu-period=0                Limit CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) period
  --cpu-quota=0                 Limit CPU CFS (Completely Fair Scheduler) quota
  --cpuset-cpus=""              CPUs in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --cpuset-mems=""              Memory nodes (MEMs) in which to allow execution (0-3, 0,1)
  --device=[]                   Add a host device to the container
  --device-read-bps=[]          Limit read rate (bytes per second) from a device (e.g., --device-read-bps=/dev/sda:1mb)
  --device-read-iops=[]         Limit read rate (IO per second) from a device (e.g., --device-read-iops=/dev/sda:1000)
  --device-write-bps=[]         Limit write rate (bytes per second) to a device (e.g., --device-write-bps=/dev/sda:1mb)
  --device-write-iops=[]        Limit write rate (IO per second) to a device (e.g., --device-write-iops=/dev/sda:1000)
  --disable-content-trust=true  Skip image verification
  --dns=[]                      Set custom DNS servers
  --dns-opt=[]                  Set custom DNS options
  --dns-search=[]               Set custom DNS search domains
  -e, --env=[]                  Set environment variables
  --entrypoint=""               Overwrite the default ENTRYPOINT of the image
  --env-file=[]                 Read in a file of environment variables
  --expose=[]                   Expose a port or a range of ports
  --group-add=[]                Add additional groups to join
  -h, --hostname=""             Container host name
  --help                        Print usage
  -i, --interactive             Keep STDIN open even if not attached
  --ip=""                       Container IPv4 address (e.g. 172.30.100.104)
  --ip6=""                      Container IPv6 address (e.g. 2001:db8::33)
  --ipc=""                      IPC namespace to use
  --isolation=""                Container isolation technology
  --kernel-memory=""            Kernel memory limit
  -l, --label=[]                Set metadata on the container (e.g., --label=com.example.key=value)
  --label-file=[]               Read in a line delimited file of labels
  --link=[]                     Add link to another container
  --log-driver=""               Logging driver for container
  --log-opt=[]                  Log driver specific options
  -m, --memory=""               Memory limit
  --mac-address=""              Container MAC address (e.g. 92:d0:c6:0a:29:33)
  --memory-reservation=""       Memory soft limit
  --memory-swap=""              A positive integer equal to memory plus swap. Specify -1 to enable unlimited swap.
  --memory-swappiness=""        Tune a container's memory swappiness behavior. Accepts an integer between 0 and 100.
  --name=""                     Assign a name to the container
  --net="bridge"                Connect a container to a network
                                'bridge': create a network stack on the default Docker bridge
                                'none': no networking
                                'container:<name|id>': reuse another container's network stack
                                'host': use the Docker host network stack
                                '<network-name>|<network-id>': connect to a user-defined network
  --net-alias=[]                Add network-scoped alias for the container
  --oom-kill-disable            Whether to disable OOM Killer for the container or not
  --oom-score-adj=0             Tune the host's OOM preferences for containers (accepts -1000 to 1000)
  -P, --publish-all             Publish all exposed ports to random ports
  -p, --publish=[]              Publish a container's port(s) to the host
  --pid=""                      PID namespace to use
  --privileged                  Give extended privileges to this container
  --read-only                   Mount the container's root filesystem as read only
  --restart="no"                Restart policy (no, on-failure[:max-retry], always, unless-stopped)
  --security-opt=[]             Security options
  --stop-signal="SIGTERM"       Signal to stop a container
  --shm-size=[]                 Size of `/dev/shm`. The format is `<number><unit>`. `number` must be greater than `0`.  Unit is optional and can be `b` (bytes), `k` (kilobytes), `m` (megabytes), or `g` (gigabytes). If you omit the unit, the system uses bytes. If you omit the size entirely, the system uses `64m`.
  -t, --tty                     Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  -u, --user=""                 Username or UID
  --ulimit=[]                   Ulimit options
  --uts=""                      UTS namespace to use
  -v, --volume=[host-src:]container-dest[:<options>]
                                Bind mount a volume. The comma-delimited
                                `options` are [rw|ro], [z|Z], or
                                [[r]shared|[r]slave|[r]private]. The
                                'host-src' is an absolute path or a name
                                value.
  --volume-driver=""            Container's volume driver
  --volumes-from=[]             Mount volumes from the specified container(s)
  -w, --workdir=""              Working directory inside the container

The docker create command creates a writeable container layer over the specified image and prepares it for running the specified command. The container ID is then printed to STDOUT. This is similar to docker run -d except the container is never started. You can then use the docker start <container_id> command to start the container at any point.

This is useful when you want to set up a container configuration ahead of time so that it is ready to start when you need it. The initial status of the new container is created.

Please see the run command section and the Docker run reference for more details.

Examples

$ docker create -t -i fedora bash
6d8af538ec541dd581ebc2a24153a28329acb5268abe5ef868c1f1a261221752
$ docker start -a -i 6d8af538ec5
bash-4.2#

As of v1.4.0 container volumes are initialized during the docker create phase (i.e., docker run too). For example, this allows you to create the data volume container, and then use it from another container:

$ docker create -v /data --name data ubuntu
240633dfbb98128fa77473d3d9018f6123b99c454b3251427ae190a7d951ad57
$ docker run --rm --volumes-from data ubuntu ls -la /data
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Dec  5 04:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 48 root root 4096 Dec  5 04:11 ..

Similarly, create a host directory bind mounted volume container, which can then be used from the subsequent container:

$ docker create -v /home/docker:/docker --name docker ubuntu
9aa88c08f319cd1e4515c3c46b0de7cc9aa75e878357b1e96f91e2c773029f03
$ docker run --rm --volumes-from docker ubuntu ls -la /docker
total 20
drwxr-sr-x  5 1000 staff  180 Dec  5 04:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 48 root root  4096 Dec  5 04:13 ..
-rw-rw-r--  1 1000 staff 3833 Dec  5 04:01 .ash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  446 Nov 28 11:51 .ashrc
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff   25 Dec  5 04:00 .gitconfig
drwxr-sr-x  3 1000 staff   60 Dec  1 03:28 .local
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 staff  920 Nov 28 11:51 .profile
drwx--S---  2 1000 staff  460 Dec  5 00:51 .ssh
drwxr-xr-x 32 1000 staff 1140 Dec  5 04:01 docker

Specify isolation technology for container (--isolation)

This option is useful in situations where you are running Docker containers on Windows. The --isolation=<value> option sets a container’s isolation technology. On Linux, the only supported is the default option which uses Linux namespaces. On Microsoft Windows, you can specify these values:

Specifying the --isolation flag without a value is the same as setting --isolation="default".