How do I edit a file after I shell to a Docker container?

Question

I successfully shelled to a Docker container using:

docker exec -i -t 69f1711a205e bash

Now I need to edit file and I don\'t have any edito

Answer 1

You can also use a special container which will contain only the command you need: Vim. I chose python-vim. It assumes that the data you want to edit are in a data container built with the following Dockerfile:

FROM debian:jessie
ENV MY_USER_PASS my_user_pass
RUN groupadd --gid 1001 my_user
RUN useradd -ms /bin/bash --home /home/my_user \
            -p $(echo "print crypt("${MY_USER_PASS:-password}", "salt")" | perl) \
            --uid 1001 --gid 1001 my_user
ADD src /home/my_user/src
RUN chown -R my_user:my_user /home/my_user/src
RUN chmod u+x /home/my_user/src
CMD ["true"]

You will be able to edit your data by mounting a Docker volume (src_volume) which will be shared by your data container (src_data) and the python-vim container.

docker volume create --name src_volume
docker build -t src_data .
docker run -d -v src_volume:/home/my_user/src --name src_data_1 src_data
docker run --rm -it -v src_volume:/src fedeg/python-vim:latest

That way, you do not change your containers. You just use a special container for this work.