docker-compose

List all running containers

$ docker compose ps

$ docker compose up --detach

$ docker compose up --build

$ docker compose --file [path/to/file] up

$ docker compose stop

$ docker compose down --rmi all --volumes

$ docker compose logs --follow

$ docker compose logs --follow [container_name]

docker-compose [OPTIONS] [COMMAND] [ARGS]...

docker-compose allows you to define a multi-container application with all of its dependencies in a single file, then spin the application up in a single command. The application’s structure and configuration are held in a single place, which makes spinning up applications simple and repeatable everywhere.

-f, --file FILE

Specify an alternate compose file (default: docker-compose.yml)

-p, --project-name NAME

Specify an alternate project name (default: directory name)

--verbose

Show more output

-v, --version

Print version and exit

build

Build or rebuild services

--no-cache

Do not use cache when building the image.

help

Displays help and usage information on a command.

kill

Forces running containers to stop by sending a SIGKILL signal.

-s SIGNAL

SIGNAL to send to the container. Default signal is SIGKILL.

logs

View output from containers.

--no-color

Produce a monochrome output.

port

Print the public port for a port binding

--protocol=proto

Choose the 4th layer protocol, tcp or udp. Default is tcp.

--index=index

Index of the container if there are multiple instances of a service. Default is 1.

ps

List containers.

-q

Only display IDs.

pull

Pulls service images from Docker registry.

--allow-insecure-ssl

Allow insecure connections to the Docker registry.

restart

Restart running containers.

-t, --timeout TIMEOUT

Specify a shutdown timeout in seconds. Default is 10.

rm

Remove stopped service containers

-f, --force

Do not ask to confirm removal.

-v

Remove volumes associated with containers.

run

Run a one-off command on a service. By default linked services will be started, unless they are already running.

--allow-insecure-ssl

Allow insecure connections to the Docker registry.

-d

Detached mode. Run container in the background, print new container name.

--entrypoint CMD

Override the entrypoint of the image with CMD.

-e KEY=VAL

Set an environment variable. Can be used multiple times.

-u, --user=USER

Run as a specific USER, a username or uid.

--no-deps

Do not start linked services.

--rm

Remove container after run. This option is ignored in the detached mode.

--service-ports

Run command with the service's ports enabled and mapped to the host.

-T

Disable pseudo tty allocation. By default a tty is allocated.

scale

Set number of containers to run for a service. Numbers are specified in the form service=num as arguments.

# docker-compose scale web=2 worker=3

start

Start existing containers.

stop

Stop running containers without removing them.

-t, --timeout TIMEOUT

Specify a shutdown timeout in seconds. Default is 10.

up

Build, (re)create, start and attach to containers. If there are existing containers for a service, `docker-compose up` will stop and recreate them (preserving mounted volumes with volumes-from), so that changes in `docker-compose.yml` are picked up. If you do not want existing containers to be recreated, `docker-compose up --no-recreate` will re-use existing containers.

--allow-insecure-ssl

Allow insecure connections to the Docker registry.

-d

Detached mode. Run container in the background, print new container name.

--no-color

Produce a monochrome output.

--no-deps

Do not start linked services.

--x-smart-recreate

Only recreate containers whose configuration or image needs to be updated. This feature is experimental.

--no-recreate

If containers already exist, do not recreate them.

--no-build

Do not build an image even if it is missing.

-t, --timeout TIMEOUT

Specify a shutdown timeout in seconds. Default is 10.

migrate-to-labels

Recreate containers to add labels. If docker-compose detects containers that were created without labels, it will refuse to run so that you don't end up with two sets of them.

Several environmental variables are available to configure docker-compose behavior.

Variables starting with DOCKER_ are the same as those used to configure the Docker command-line client. If you're using boot2docker, eval "$(boot2docker shellinit)" will set them to their correct values.

COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME

Sets the project name, which is prepended to the name of every container started by docker-compose. Defaults to the basename of the current working directory.

COMPOSE_FILE

Specify what file to read configuration from. If not provided, docker-compose will look for docker-compose.yml in the current working directory, and then each parent directory successively, until found.

DOCKER_HOST

Sets the URL of the docker daemon. As with the Docker client, defaults to unix:///var/run/docker.sock.

DOCKER_TLS_VERIFY

When set to anything other than an empty string, enables TLS communication with the daemon.

DOCKER_CERT_PATH

Configures the path to the ca.pem, cert.pem, and key.pem files used for TLS verification. Defaults to ~/.docker.

Full documentation for docker-compose at: <http://docs.docker.com/compose/>

This manual page was written by Dariusz Dwornikowski <dariusz.dwornikowski@cs.put.poznan.pl> based on the official docker compose documentation.