Editing Files inside of a Docker Container

Question

How can I edit the config files that are inside of a docker container that has been downloaded on the host?

I am using this tutorial but I am not sure where to find and edit the traefik.toml file

Answer 1

There are multiple ways to achieve that:

You can enter the container by running the command:

docker exec -it <container-name> bash

Note however depending on the container you may not have a simple text editor..

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Another alternative would be to copy the file you want to edit from the container onto your host by running:

docker cp <container-name>:/path/to/file/in/container .

Edit the file and then copy it back into the container:

docker cp <file> <container-name>:/path/to/file/in/container

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Third option is to create a bind mount which will effectively expose the file from the container onto the host

docker run -v $(pwd)/files:/dir/containing/file/in/container ...

This will expose the container folder in the "files" directory, and you can edit the file in the host and it will be directly reflected inside the container.