How to check if the docker engine and a docker container are running?

Question

In a script, I need to check:

a) Is the docker engine running?
b) Given a container name, is that docker container running?

[the initial wording of this

Answer 1

container status: true/false

# docker inspect --format '{{json .State.Running}}' container-name
true
#

Answer 2

For OS X users (Mojave 10.14.3)

Here is what i use in my Bash script to test if Docker is running or not

# Check if docker is running
if ! docker info >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "Docker does not seem to be running, run it first and retry"
    exit 1
fi

Answer 3

Run this command in the terminal:

docker ps

If docker is not running, you wil get this message:

Error response from daemon: dial unix docker.raw.sock: connect: connection refused

Answer 4

For the answer to your first question refer to this answer - https://stackoverflow.com/a/65447848/4691279

For your second question - you can use command like docker ps --filter "name=<<<YOUR_CONTAINER_NAME>>>" to check whether a particular container is running or not.

• If Docker and Container both are running then you will get output like below:

  $ docker ps --filter "name=nostalgic_stallman"
  
  CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES       
  9b6247364a03        busybox             "top"               2 minutes ago       Up 2 minutes                            nostalgic_stallman
  

• If Docker is not running then you will get an error message saying docker daemon is not running.

• If Docker running but Container is not running then you will not get the container name in the output of this command.

Answer 5

Any docker command (except docker -v), like docker ps If Docker is running, you'll get some valid response, otherwise you'll get a message that includes "Is your docker daemon up and running?"

You can also check your task manager.

Answer 6

Run:

docker version

If docker is running you will see:

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           ...
 [omitted]

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          ...
 [omitted]

If docker is not running you will see:

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           ...
 [omitted]

Error response from daemon: Bad response from Docker engine