How to check if a process is running inside docker container

Question

[Updated1] I have a shell which will change TCP kernel parameters in some functions, but now I need to make this shell run in Docker container, that means, the shell need to

Answer 1

What works for me is to check for the inode number of the '/.' Inside the docker, its a very high number. Outside the docker, its a very low number like '2'. I reckon this approach would also depend on the FileSystem being used.

Example

Inside the docker:

# ls -ali / | sed '2!d' |awk {'print $1'}
1565265

Outside the docker

$ ls -ali / | sed '2!d' |awk {'print $1'}
2

In a script:

#!/bin/bash
INODE_NUM=`ls -ali / | sed '2!d' |awk {'print $1'}`
if [ $INODE_NUM == '2' ];
then
        echo "Outside the docker"
else
        echo "Inside the docker"
fi

Answer 2

Thomas' solution as code:

running_in_docker() {
  (awk -F/ '$2 == "docker"' /proc/self/cgroup | read non_empty_input)
}

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Note

The read with a dummy variable is a simple idiom for Does this produce any output?. It's a compact method for turning a possibly verbose grep or awk into a test of a pattern.

Additional note on read