How do I mount a Docker volume while using a Windows host?

Question

Mounting a Docker volume while being under a Windows host, has been a huge pain for me, and I could not get it to work.

Currently I got the following simple Dockerfi

Answer 1

It is possible the / is interpreted as an option by the CMD Windows shell.

Try first a docker-machine ssh default, in order to open an ssh session in your VM. From there try the docker run again: docker run -v /c/Users/phisch/dev/htdocs:/var/www phisch:dev

As commented by thaJeztah in issue 18290:

You could consider using docker-compose; docker-compose allows you to define bind-mounted volumes relative to the location of the docker-compose.yml file.
Using a docker-compose file allows you to specify all options needed to run your containers in a single file, which makes it ideal for sharing between team members (ie, just run docker-compose up -d will start all containers for the project with the right options).

This comment mentions a&dding a second /:

docker run -v //c/Users/phisch/dev/htdocs:`/var/www` phisch:dev

Even in the docker toolbox msys shell session, there are issues (like issue 282)

---

After lengthy discussion, the issue was that /var/www had a folder in it.

Mounting /c/Users/phisch/dev/htdoc onto an empty folder does work, but might not give the expected result, as the default CMD apache2-foreground might still serve its content based on /var/www (which would not have htdocs content if that htdocs is mounted onto another folder).

Answer 2

I use Docker for Windows with PowerShell and use $PWD to refer to the current directory when mounting a volume, and it works well for me. A couple of examples:

docker run -p 2368:2368 -v $PWD/ghost:/var/lib/ghost -d ghost

docker run -p 2368:2368 -v $PWD/:/var/lib/ghost -d ghost

Answer 3

If we are talking about Docker on Windows then we have to take in account the fact that all containers are run on VirtualBox.

Before mounting volume to a container we have to be sure that particular folder is available for VirtualBox.

Firstly, to define the name of the current running Docker machine, run

$ docker-machine.exe  active
default

Secondly, add shared folder to VirtualBox:

$ VBoxManage sharedfolder add default --name "some_project" --hostpath D:\Projects\some_project

Thirdly, create the folder

$ docker-machine.exe ssh default 'sudo mkdir --parents /d/projects/some_project'

Fourthly, mount it:

$ docker-machine.exe ssh default 'sudo mount -t vboxsf some_project /d/projects/some_project'

Finally, create a container:

$ docker run -v //d/projects/some_project://d/projects/some_project -d some-image_name