How to mount local volumes in docker machine

Question

I am trying to use docker-machine with docker-compose. The file docker-compose.yml has definitions as follows:

web:
  build: .
  command: ./run_web.sh
  volu         


        

Answer 1

It can be done witch combination of three tools: docker-machine mount, rsync, inotifywait

TL;DR

Script based on all below is here

Let's say you have your docker-compose.yml and run_web.sh in /home/jdcaballerov/web

1. Mount directory on machine which has same path as you have it on your host docker-machine machine:/home/jdcaballerov/web /tmp/some_random_dir
2. Synchronize mounted directory with dir on your host rsync -r /home/jdcaballerov/web /tmp/some_random_dir

3. Synchronize on every change of files in your directory:

   inotifywait -r -m -e close_write --format '%w%f' /home/jdcaballerov/web | while read CHANGED_FILE
   do
       rsync /home/jdcaballerov/web /tmp/some_random_dir
   done
   

BE AWARE - there are two directories which has same path - one is on your local (host) machine, second is on docker machine.

Answer 2

I am using docker-machine 0.12.2 with the virtualbox drive on my local machine. I found that there is a directory /hosthome/$(user name) from where you have access to local files.

Answer 3

Also ran into this issue and it looks like local volumes are not mounted when using docker-machine. A hack solution is to

1. get the current working directory of the docker-machine instance docker-machine ssh <name> pwd

2. use a command line tool like rsync to copy folder to remote system

   rsync -avzhe ssh --progress <name_of_folder> username@remote_ip:<result _of_pwd_from_1>.
   

The default pwd is /root so the command above would be rsync -avzhe ssh --progress <name_of_folder> username@remote_ip:/root

NB: you would need to supply the password for the remote system. You can quickly create one by ssh into the remote system and creating a password.

3. change the volume mount point in your docker-compose.yml file from .:/app to /root/<name_of_folder>:/app

4. run docker-compose up -d

NB when changes are made locally, don't forget to rerun rsync to push the changes to the remote system.

Its not perfect but it works. An issue is ongoing https://github.com/docker/machine/issues/179

Other project that attempt to solve this include docker-rsync

Answer 4

All other answers were good for the time but now (Docker Toolbox v18.09.3) all works out of the box. You just need to add a shared folder into VirtualBox VM.

Docker Toolbox automatically adds C:\Users as shared folder /c/Users under virtual linux machine (using Virtual Box shared folders feature), so if your docker-compose.yml file is located somewhere under this path and you mount host machine's directories only under this path - all should work out of the box.

For example:

C:\Users\username\my-project\docker-compose.yml:

...
  volumes:
    - .:/app
...

The . path will be automatically converted to absolute path C:\Users\username\my-project and then to /c/Users/username/my-project. And this is exactly how this path is seen from the point of view of linux virtual machine (you can check it: docker-machine ssh and then ls /c/Users/username/my-project). So, the final mount will be /c/Users/username/my-project:/app.

All works transparently for you.

But this doesn't work if your host mount path is not under C:\Users path. For example, if you put the same docker-compose.yml under D:\dev\my-project.

This can be fixed easily though.

1. Stop the virtual machine (docker-machine stop).

2. Open Virtual Box GUI, open Settings of Virtual Machine named default, open Shared Folders section and add the new shared folder:

   • Folder Path: D:\dev
   • Folder Name: d/dev

   Press OK twice and close Virtual Box GUI.

3. Start the virtual machine (docker-machine start).

That's all. All paths of host machine under D:\dev should work now in docker-compose.yml mounts.

Answer 5

Since October 2017 there is a new command for docker-machine that does the trick, but make sure there is nothing in the directory before executing it, otherwise it might get lost:

docker-machine mount <machine-name>:<guest-path> <host-path>

Check the docs for more information: https://docs.docker.com/machine/reference/mount/

PR with the change: https://github.com/docker/machine/pull/4018

Answer 6

If you choose the rsync option with docker-machine, you can combine it with the docker-machine ssh <machinename> command like this:

rsync -rvz --rsh='docker-machine ssh <machinename>' --progress <local_directory_to_sync_to> :<host_directory_to_sync_to>

It uses this command format of rsync, leaving HOST blank:

rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST

(http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/rsync1.html)