Copying files from Docker container to host

Question

I\'m thinking of using Docker to build my dependencies on a Continuous Integration (CI) server, so that I don\'t have to install all the runtimes and libraries on the agents

Answer 1

Most of the answers do not indicate that the container must run before docker cp will work:

docker build -t IMAGE_TAG .
docker run -d IMAGE_TAG
CONTAINER_ID=$(docker ps -alq)
# If you do not know the exact file name, you'll need to run "ls"
# FILE=$(docker exec CONTAINER_ID sh -c "ls /path/*.zip")
docker cp $CONTAINER_ID:/path/to/file .
docker stop $CONTAINER_ID

Answer 2

Mount a "volume" and copy the artifacts into there:

mkdir artifacts
docker run -i -v ${PWD}/artifacts:/artifacts ubuntu:14.04 sh << COMMANDS
# ... build software here ...
cp <artifact> /artifacts
# ... copy more artifacts into `/artifacts` ...
COMMANDS

Then when the build finishes and the container is no longer running, it has already copied the artifacts from the build into the artifacts directory on the host.

Edit

Caveat: When you do this, you may run into problems with the user id of the docker user matching the user id of the current running user. That is, the files in /artifacts will be shown as owned by the user with the UID of the user used inside the docker container. A way around this may be to use the calling user's UID:

docker run -i -v ${PWD}:/working_dir -w /working_dir -u $(id -u) \
    ubuntu:14.04 sh << COMMANDS
# Since $(id -u) owns /working_dir, you should be okay running commands here
# and having them work. Then copy stuff into /working_dir/artifacts .
COMMANDS

Answer 3

You can use bind instead of volume if you want to mount only one folder, not create special storage for a container:

1. Build your image with tag :

   docker build . -t <image>

2. Run your image and bind current $(pwd) directory where app.py stores and map it to /root/example/ inside your container.

   docker run --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)",target=/root/example/ <image> python app.py

Answer 4

TLDR;

$ docker run --rm -iv${PWD}:/host-volume my-image sh -s <<EOF
chown $(id -u):$(id -g) my-artifact.tar.xz
cp -a my-artifact.tar.xz /host-volume
EOF

Description

docker run with a host volume, chown the artifact, cp the artifact to the host volume:

$ docker build -t my-image - <<EOF
> FROM busybox
> WORKDIR /workdir
> RUN touch foo.txt bar.txt qux.txt
> EOF
Sending build context to Docker daemon  2.048kB
Step 1/3 : FROM busybox
 ---> 00f017a8c2a6
Step 2/3 : WORKDIR /workdir
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 36151d97f2c9
Step 3/3 : RUN touch foo.txt bar.txt qux.txt
 ---> Running in a657ed4f5cab
 ---> 4dd197569e44
Removing intermediate container a657ed4f5cab
Successfully built 4dd197569e44

$ docker run --rm -iv${PWD}:/host-volume my-image sh -s <<EOF
chown -v $(id -u):$(id -g) *.txt
cp -va *.txt /host-volume
EOF
changed ownership of '/host-volume/bar.txt' to 10335:11111
changed ownership of '/host-volume/qux.txt' to 10335:11111
changed ownership of '/host-volume/foo.txt' to 10335:11111
'bar.txt' -> '/host-volume/bar.txt'
'foo.txt' -> '/host-volume/foo.txt'
'qux.txt' -> '/host-volume/qux.txt'

$ ls -n
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 10335 11111 0 May  7 18:22 bar.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 10335 11111 0 May  7 18:22 foo.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 10335 11111 0 May  7 18:22 qux.txt

This trick works because the chown invocation within the heredoc the takes $(id -u):$(id -g) values from outside the running container; i.e., the docker host.

The benefits are:

• you don't have to docker container run --name or docker container create --name before
• you don't have to docker container rm after

Answer 5

Create a path where you want to copy the file and then use:

docker run -d -v hostpath:dockerimag

Answer 6

If you just want to pull a file from an image (instead of a running container) you can do this:

docker run --rm <image> cat <source> > <local_dest>

This will bring up the container, write the new file, then remove the container. One drawback, however, is that the file permissions and modified date will not be preserved.