How to enter in a Docker container already running with a new TTY

Question

I have a container that is running the Apache service in the foreground. I would like to be able to access the container from another shell in order to \"poke around\" insid

Answer 1

docker exec -t -i container_name /bin/bash

Will take you to the containers console.

Answer 2

On Windows 10, I have docker installed. I am running Jnekins on a container and I encountered the same error message. Here is a step by step guide to resolve this issue:

Step 1: Open gitbash and run docker run -p 8080:8080 -p 50000:50000 jenkins.

Step 2: Open a new terminal.

Step 3: Do "docker ps" to get list of the running container. Copy the container id.

Step 4: Now if you do "docker exec -it {container id} sh" or "docker exec -it {container id} bash" you will get an error message similar to " the input device is not a TTY. If you are using mintty, try prefixing the command with 'winpty'"

Step 5: Run command " $winpty docker exec -it {container id} sh"

vola !! You are now inside the terminal.

Answer 3

The "nsinit" way is:

install nsinit

git clone git@github.com:dotcloud/docker.git
cd docker
make shell

from inside the container:

go install github.com/dotcloud/docker/pkg/libcontainer/nsinit/nsinit

from outside:

docker cp id_docker_container:/go/bin/nsinit /root/

use it

cd /var/lib/docker/execdriver/native/<container_id>/
nsinit exec bash

Answer 4

First step get container id:

docker ps

This will show you something like

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES

1170fe9e9460 localhost:5000/python:env-7e847468c4d73a0f35e9c5164046ad88 "./run_notebook.sh" 26 seconds ago Up 25 seconds 0.0.0.0:8989->9999/tcp SLURM_TASK-303337_0

1170fe9e9460 is the container id in this case.

Second, enter the docker :

docker exec -it [container_id] bash

so in the above case: docker exec -it 1170fe9e9460 bash

Answer 5

nsenter does that. However I also needed to enter a container in a simple way and nsenter didn't suffice for my needs. It was buggy in some occasions (black screen plus -wd flag not working). Furthermore I wanted to login as a specific user and in a specific directory.

I ended up making my own tool to enter containers. You can find it at: https://github.com/Pithikos/docker-enter

Its usage is as easy as

./docker-enter [-u <user>] [-d <directory>] <container ID>