docker compose orphan containers warning

Question

How to be with orphan images when you have 2 independent projects and you want them to work at the same time or at least to build running docker-compose up -d without --remove-orphans flag when images are already built for another project.

docker compose file1:

version: '2' services:   applications:     image: tianon/true     volumes:       - ../../:/var/www/vhosts/project1   nginx:     build: ./images/nginx     image: project1/nginx:latest     ports:       - "80:80"     volumes_from:       -  applications     networks:       appnet:         aliases:           - project1.app           - admin.project1.app   php:     image: project1/php:latest     ports:       - "7778:7778"     build:        context: ./images/php       dockerfile: Dockerfile     volumes_from:       -  applications     networks:       -  appnet   mysql:     image: project1/mysql:latest     build: ./images/mysql     environment:       MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret     volumes:       -  mysqldata:/var/lib/mysql     networks:       -  appnet     ports:       - "33066:3306"  workspace:     image: project1/workspace:latest     build:       context: ./images/workspace     volumes_from:       - applications     working_dir: /var/www/vhosts/project1     networks:       -  appnet networks:   appnet:     driver: "bridge" volumes:    mysqldata:     driver: "local" 

the second docker compose file:

version: '2' services:   project2_applications:     image: tianon/true     volumes:       - ../../:/var/www/vhosts/project2   project2_nginx:     build: ./images/nginx     image: project2/nginx:latest     ports:       - "8080:80"     volumes_from:       -  project2_applications     networks:       project2_appnet:         aliases:           - project2.app           - admin.project2.app   project2_php:     image: project2/php:latest     ports:       - "7777:7777"     build:        context: ./images/php       dockerfile: Dockerfile     volumes_from:       -  project2_applications     networks:       -  project2_appnet   project2_mysql:     image: project2/mysql:latest     build: ./images/mysql     environment:       MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret     volumes:       -  project2_mysqldata:/var/lib/mysql     networks:       -  project2_appnet     ports:       - "33067:3306"   project2_workspace:     image: project2/workspace:latest     build:       context: ./images/workspace     volumes_from:       - project2_applications     working_dir: /var/www/vhosts/videosite     networks:       -  project2_appnet networks:   project2_appnet:     driver: "bridge" volumes:    project2_mysqldata:     driver: "local" 

And now when I have already built project1 and trying to run docker-compose up -d for the second project I see warning:

WARNING: Found orphan containers (docker_workspace_1, docker_nginx_1, docker_php_1, docker_mysql_1, docker_memcached_1) for this project. If you removed or renamed this service in your compose file, you can run this command with the --remove-orphans flag to clean it up.

I have a supposition that it's because container names for project1 should be more specific and I need to add some prefixes like I'm doing for project2, but project1 is in use by many other developers and I do not want to change it.

Is there any way to turn off orphan check?

And the second thing: is just a warning message but for some reason, after it appearing compose is failing with error:

ERROR: Encountered errors while bringing up the project.

And to make it work I need to run docker-compose up -d --remove-orphans

Answer 1

Compose uses the project name (which defaults to the basename of the project directory, but can be specified explicitly) internally to isolate projects from each other. The project name is used to create unique identifiers for all of the project's containers and other resources. For example, if your project name is myapp and it includes two services db and web, then Compose starts containers named myapp_db_1 and myapp_web_1 respectively.

You get the "Found orphan containers" warning because docker-compose detects some containers which belong to another project with the same name.

To prevent different projects from interfering with each other (and suppress the warning) you can set a custom project name by using the -p command line option or the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable. The environment variable can also be set via an environment file (.env in the current working directory by default).