How to run vi on docker container?

Question

I have installed docker on my host virtual machine. And now want to create a file using vi.

But it's showing me an error:

bash: vi: command not found 

Answer 1

login into container with the following command:

docker exec -it <container> bash 

Then , run the following command .

apt-get update apt-get install vim 

Answer 2

The command to run depends on what base image you are using.

For Alpine, vi is installed as part of the base OS. Installing vim would be:

apk -U add vim 

For Debian and Ubuntu:

apt-get update && apt-get install -y vim 

For CentOS, vi is usually installed with the base OS. For vim:

yum install -y vim 

This should only be done in early development. Once you get a working container, the changes to files should be made to your image or configs stored outside of your container. Update your Dockerfile and other files it uses to build a new image. This certainly shouldn't be done in production since changes inside the container are by design ephemeral and will be lost when the container is replaced.