Run commands on host from container command prompt

Question

I use portainer to manage containers and it works great.

https://portainer.io/

But when I connect to console, I get the command prompt of container. Is there any way to run simple commands like ls /home/ that will list the files on host?

In other words is there any image that will mount the file system of host server "as-is"?

Answer 1

Here's an example using docker command line:

$ docker run --rm -it -v ~/Desktop:/Desktop alpine:latest /bin/sh
/ # ls /Desktop/

You can extend the approach to as far as you need to. Experiment with it. Learn about the different mount options.

I know the Docker app on MacOS provides a way for default volume mounts. Portainer also claims to provide a volume management screen, am yet to use it.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

If you're dealing with services, or an existing, running container, you can in most cases access the shell directly. Let's say you have a container called "meow". You can run:

docker exec -it meow bash

and it will drop you into the bash shell. You'll actually need to know if bash is installed, or try calling sh instead.

The "i" option indicates it should be interactive, and the "t" option indicates it should emulate a TTY terminal. When you're done, you can hit Ctrl+D to exit out of the container.