How to set an environment variable in a running docker container

Question

If I have a docker container that I started a while back, what is the best way to set an environment variable in that running container? I set an environment variable initia

Answer 1

Here's how you can modify a running container to update its environment variables. This assumes you're running on Linux. I tested it with Docker 19.03.8

Live Restore

First, ensure that your Docker daemon is set to leave containers running when it's shut down. Edit your /etc/docker/daemon.json, and add "live-restore": true as a top-level key.

sudo vim /etc/docker/daemon.json

My file looks like this:

{
    "default-runtime": "nvidia",
    "runtimes": {
        "nvidia": {
            "path": "nvidia-container-runtime",
            "runtimeArgs": []
        }
    },
    "live-restore": true
}

Taken from here.

Get the Container ID

Save the ID of the container you want to edit for easier access to the files.

export CONTAINER_ID=`docker inspect --format="{{.Id}}" `

Edit Container Configuration

Edit the configuration file, go to the "Env" section, and add your key.

sudo vim /var/lib/docker/containers/$CONTAINER_ID/config.v2.json

My file looks like this:

...,"Env":["TEST=1",...

Stop and Start Docker

I found that restarting Docker didn't work, I had to stop and then start Docker with two separate commands.

sudo systemctl stop docker
sudo systemctl start docker

Because of live-restore, your containers should stay up.

Verify That It Worked

docker exec  bash -c 'echo $TEST'

Single quotes are important here.

You can also verify that the uptime of your container hasn't changed:

docker ps