Access logs of a killed docker container

Question

I recently had to clean up my full disk because of space taken by past docker containers. So I assume that I can access logs of killed containers.

For example I have the

Answer 1

As the question states that the container is killed not destroyed (removed), you can still access logs of not running containers doing docker logs <container-id>

You can find out the ID of the not running container with: docker ps -a

As long as you have the default docker logging driver.

Answer 2

By default, destroying a container will also remove logs. If you need logs, you have to specify a --log-driver option. On a modern GNU/Linux box, use journald, for example with the docker run command

docker run --log-driver=journald

Another example using docker-compose.yml syntax :

mycontainer:
    image: myimage
    logging:
        driver: journald
        options:
            tag: mytag

Then access logs using journalctl command + filter rules

journalctl -u docker CONTAINER_NAME=mycontainer_name

journalctl -u docker CONTAINER_TAG=mytag

Tag is useful when you're running a multiple service application, for example with docker-compose.

I think in your case, the container is "recreated" using docker-compose so logs are linked to container lifetime if you don't specify logging-driver stuff.

Also, Docker history command is linked to an image, not a container (container == running instance of a specified image)