Most commonly used docker commands with examples

Last Updated on :May 14, 2021

In this article we will go through the most commonly used docker commands with examples.

Docker Basic commands

Show the current version of docker

$ docker --version
Docker version 19.03.6, build 369ce74a3c

Show info like number of containers, number of images , server version etc

$ docker info
Client:
 Debug Mode: false

Server:
 Containers: 36
  Running: 22
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 14
 Images: 119
 Server Version: 19.03.6
 Storage Driver: overlay2

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Docker Container Commands

List running containers

docker container ls

OR 

docker ps

List all containers (both running and not running containers)

$ docker container ls -a

Stop container , remove container and remove multiple container

# Stop a container
$ docker container stop CONTAINER_ID

# Remove a container that is not running
$ docker container rm CONTAINER_ID

# Remove a running container (with -f flag)
$ docker container rm -f CONTAINER_ID

# Remove multiple containers 
$ docker container rm CONTAINER_ID_1 CONTAINER_ID_2 CONTAINER_ID_3

Check Container Logs

$ docker container logs CONTAINER_ID

OR 

$ docker container logs CONTAINER_NAME

Create and run a docker container.
Below example of Starting a nginx Web Server

# Run a container in foreground
$ docker container run -it -p 80:80 nginx

# Run a container in background
$ docker container run -d -p 80:80 nginx

# Run a container specifying the name 
$ docker container run -d -p 80:80 --name nginx-server nginx

# View details info of a container
$ docker container inspect CONTAINER_NAME
$ docker container inspect nginx-server

Go to container bash prompt to edit config files , debug etc

$ docker container exec -it nginx-server bash

Get docker container performance stats (cpu, mem, network, disk, etc)

$ docker container stats CONTAINER_NAME

# Get nginx container (created in above example) performance stats
$ docker container stats nginx-server

Docker Image Commands

List docker images that we have pulled

$ docker image ls

Pull the docker images

# Pull nginx docker image
$ docker pull nginx

# Pull nginx image with version 1.11.9
$ docker pull nginx:1.11.9

# Pull nginx image with version 1.11.9 with alpine tag
$ docker pull nginx:1.11.9-alpine

Remove an image

$ docker image rm IMAGE_NAME

Retag existing image

$ docker image tag nginx rkshpanigrahi/nginx 

Upload to docker hub

$ docker image push rkshpanigrahi/nginx 

Add tag to newly created image

$ docker image tag rkshpanigrahi/nginx rkshpanigrahi/nginx:test