File ownership after docker cp

Question

How can I control which user owns the files I copy in and out of a container?

The docker cp command says this about file ownership:

The cp command behaves like the Unix cp -a command in that directories are copied recursively with permissions preserved if possible. Ownership is set to the user and primary group at the destination. For example, files copied to a container are created with UID:GID of the root user. Files copied to the local machine are created with the UID:GID of the user which invoked the docker cp command. However, if you specify the -a option, docker cp sets the ownership to the user and primary group at the source.

It says that files copied to a container are created as the root user, but that's not what I see. I create two files owned by user id 1005 and 1006. Those owners are translated into the container's user namespace. The -a option seems to make no difference when I copy the file into a container.

$ sudo chown 1005:1005 test.txt
$ ls -l test.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 1005 1005 29 Oct  6 12:43 test.txt
$ docker volume create sandbox1
sandbox1
$ docker run --name run1 -vsandbox1:/data alpine echo OK
OK
$ docker cp test.txt run1:/data/test1005.txt
$ docker cp -a test.txt run1:/data/test1005a.txt
$ sudo chown 1006:1006 test.txt
$ docker cp test.txt run1:/data/test1006.txt
$ docker cp -a test.txt run1:/data/test1006a.txt
$ docker run --rm -vsandbox1:/data alpine ls -l /data
total 16
-rw-r--r--    1 1005     1005            29 Oct  6 19:43 test1005.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 1005     1005            29 Oct  6 19:43 test1005a.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 1006     1006            29 Oct  6 19:43 test1006.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 1006     1006            29 Oct  6 19:43 test1006a.txt

When I copy files out of the container, they are always owned by me. Again, the -a option seems to do nothing.

$ docker run --rm -vsandbox1:/data alpine cp /data/test1006.txt /data/test1007.txt
$ docker run --rm -vsandbox1:/data alpine chown 1007:1007 /data/test1007.txt
$ docker cp run1:/data/test1006.txt .
$ docker cp run1:/data/test1007.txt .
$ docker cp -a run1:/data/test1006.txt test1006a.txt
$ docker cp -a run1:/data/test1007.txt test1007a.txt
$ ls -l test*.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 don  don  29 Oct  6 12:43 test1006a.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 don  don  29 Oct  6 12:43 test1006.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 don  don  29 Oct  6 12:47 test1007a.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 don  don  29 Oct  6 12:47 test1007.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 1006 1006 29 Oct  6 12:43 test.txt
$ 

Answer 1

You can also change the ownership by logging in as root user into the container :

docker exec -it --user root <container-id> /bin/bash
chown -R <username>:<groupname> <folder/file>

Answer 2

In addition to @Don Kirkby's answer, let me provide a similar example in bash/shell script for the case that you want to copy something into a container while applying different ownership and permissions than those of the original file.

Let's create a new container from a small image that will keep running by itself:

docker run -d --name nginx nginx:alpine

Now wel'll create a new file which is owned by the current user and has default permissions:

touch foo.bar
ls -ahl foo.bar
>> -rw-rw-r-- 1 my-user my-group 0 Sep 21 16:45 foo.bar

Copying this file into the container will set ownership and group to the UID of my user and preserve the permissions:

docker cp foo.bar nginx:/foo.bar
docker exec nginx sh -c 'ls -ahl /foo.bar'
>> -rw-rw-r--    1 4098     4098           0 Sep 21 14:45 /foo.bar

Using a little tar work-around, however, I can change the ownership and permissions that are applied inside of the container.

tar -cf - foo.bar --mode u=+r,g=-rwx,o=-rwx --owner root --group root | docker cp - nginx:/
docker exec nginx sh -c 'ls -ahl /foo.bar'
>> -r--------    1 root     root           0 Sep 21 14:45 /foo.bar

tar options explained:

• c creates a new archive instead of unpacking one.
• f - will write to stdout instead of a file.
• foo.bar is the input file to be packed.
• --mode specifies the permissions for the target. Similar to chown, they can be given in symbolic notation or as an octal number.
• --owner sets the new owner of the file.
• --group sets the new group of the file.

docker cp - reads the file that is to be copied into the container from stdin.

This approach is useful when a file needs to be copied into a created container before it starts, such that docker exec is not an option (which can only operate on running containers).

Answer 3

Just a one-liner (similar to @ramu's answer), using root to make the call:

docker exec -u 0 -it <container-id> chown node:node /home/node/myfile