Linux Administration Cookbook

Creating a container

Starting with the creation of our new container, this was the command we used:

$ sudo docker run -itd --rm alpine /bin/ash

Here, we're telling Docker we want to run a command in a new container:

docker run

We're then informing it that we want it to be interactive, to have a pseudo-TTY, and to start detached (knocking us back to the VM shell):

-itd

Next, we're telling Docker that when the container stops, we want it to automatically remove itself:

--rm

This is a relatively new feature, only introduced because people didn't realize containers linger after they stop, and people would end up with lists of hundreds of stopped containers.

Lastly, we're saying what image (from Docker Hub) we want to use, and what command to ...