Why Docker container with --link and restart policy isn't started?

Question

I have two containers, the first one is redis and the second one is my app which has --link to redis container. They both have restart policies:

docker run --restart=on-failure:10 --name redis redis 
docker run --restart=on-failure:10 --name app --link redis app 

Then when I sudo service docker stop and then sudo service docker start only redis container is started. BTW, if there isn't --link in the app container it's started as well.

My Docker version is 1.7.1.

vagrant@vagrant-ubuntu-trusty-64:~$ docker version
Client version: 1.7.1
Client API version: 1.19
Go version (client): go1.4.2
Git commit (client): 786b29d
OS/Arch (client): linux/amd64
Server version: 1.7.1
Server API version: 1.19
Go version (server): go1.4.2
Git commit (server): 786b29d
OS/Arch (server): linux/amd64

Answer 1

Did you already try to use --restart:always instead?

I assume that your app container is not restarted because it ended successfully during docker stop. redis might be restarted due to an error (did you have a look at docker logs for the rediscontainer?). So when you specify --restart:on-failure:10 in that situation it would work as designed because only rediswas failing.