docker compose#
docker compose [-f <arg>...] [options] [COMMAND] [ARGS...]
Define and run multi-container applications with Docker
Subcommands#
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
attach |
Attach local standard input, output, and error streams to a service's running container |
build |
Build or rebuild services |
config |
Parse, resolve and render compose file in canonical format |
cp |
Copy files/folders between a service container and the local filesystem |
create |
Creates containers for a service |
down |
Stop and remove containers, networks |
events |
Receive real time events from containers |
exec |
Execute a command in a running container |
images |
List images used by the created containers |
kill |
Force stop service containers |
logs |
View output from containers |
ls |
List running compose projects |
pause |
Pause services |
port |
Print the public port for a port binding |
ps |
List containers |
pull |
Pull service images |
push |
Push service images |
restart |
Restart service containers |
rm |
Removes stopped service containers |
run |
Run a one-off command on a service |
scale |
Scale services |
start |
Start services |
stats |
Display a live stream of container(s) resource usage statistics |
stop |
Stop services |
top |
Display the running processes |
unpause |
Unpause services |
up |
Create and start containers |
version |
Show the Docker Compose version information |
wait |
Block until containers of all (or specified) services stop. |
watch |
Watch build context for service and rebuild/refresh containers when files are updated |
Options#
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
--all-resources |
bool |
Include all resources, even those not used by services | |
--ansi |
string |
auto |
Control when to print ANSI control characters ("never"|"always"|"auto") |
--compatibility |
bool |
Run compose in backward compatibility mode | |
--dry-run |
bool |
Execute command in dry run mode | |
--env-file |
stringArray |
Specify an alternate environment file | |
-f, --file |
stringArray |
Compose configuration files | |
--parallel |
int |
-1 |
Control max parallelism, -1 for unlimited |
--profile |
stringArray |
Specify a profile to enable | |
--progress |
string |
auto |
Set type of progress output (auto, tty, plain, json, quiet) |
--project-directory |
string |
Specify an alternate working directory (default: the path of the, first specified, Compose file) |
|
-p, --project-name |
string |
Project name |
Examples#
Use -f to specify the name and path of one or more Compose files#
Use the -f flag to specify the location of a Compose configuration file.
Specifying multiple Compose files#
You can supply multiple -f configuration files. When you supply multiple files, Compose combines them into a single
configuration. Compose builds the configuration in the order you supply the files. Subsequent files override and add
to their predecessors.
For example, consider this command line:
$ docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.admin.yml run backup_db
The docker-compose.yml file might specify a webapp service.
services:
webapp:
image: examples/web
ports:
- "8000:8000"
volumes:
- "/data"
If the docker-compose.admin.yml also specifies this same service, any matching fields override the previous file.
New values, add to the webapp service configuration.
services:
webapp:
build: .
environment:
- DEBUG=1
When you use multiple Compose files, all paths in the files are relative to the first configuration file specified
with -f. You can use the --project-directory option to override this base path.
Use a -f with - (dash) as the filename to read the configuration from stdin. When stdin is used all paths in the
configuration are relative to the current working directory.
The -f flag is optional. If you don’t provide this flag on the command line, Compose traverses the working directory
and its parent directories looking for a compose.yaml or docker-compose.yaml file.
Specifying a path to a single Compose file#
You can use the -f flag to specify a path to a Compose file that is not located in the current directory, either
from the command line or by setting up a COMPOSE_FILE environment variable in your shell or in an environment file.
For an example of using the -f option at the command line, suppose you are running the Compose Rails sample, and
have a compose.yaml file in a directory called sandbox/rails. You can use a command like docker compose pull to
get the postgres image for the db service from anywhere by using the -f flag as follows:
$ docker compose -f ~/sandbox/rails/compose.yaml pull db
Use -p to specify a project name#
Each configuration has a project name. Compose sets the project name using
the following mechanisms, in order of precedence:
- The -p command line flag
- The COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable
- The top level name: variable from the config file (or the last name:
from a series of config files specified using -f)
- The basename of the project directory containing the config file (or
containing the first config file specified using -f)
- The basename of the current directory if no config file is specified
Project names must contain only lowercase letters, decimal digits, dashes,
and underscores, and must begin with a lowercase letter or decimal digit. If
the basename of the project directory or current directory violates this
constraint, you must use one of the other mechanisms.
$ docker compose -p my_project ps -a
NAME SERVICE STATUS PORTS
my_project_demo_1 demo running
$ docker compose -p my_project logs
demo_1 | PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
demo_1 | 64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.095 ms
Use profiles to enable optional services#
Use --profile to specify one or more active profiles
Calling docker compose --profile frontend up starts the services with the profile frontend and services
without any specified profiles.
You can also enable multiple profiles, e.g. with docker compose --profile frontend --profile debug up the profiles frontend and debug is enabled.
Profiles can also be set by COMPOSE_PROFILES environment variable.
Configuring parallelism#
Use --parallel to specify the maximum level of parallelism for concurrent engine calls.
Calling docker compose --parallel 1 pull pulls the pullable images defined in the Compose file
one at a time. This can also be used to control build concurrency.
Parallelism can also be set by the COMPOSE_PARALLEL_LIMIT environment variable.
Set up environment variables#
You can set environment variables for various docker compose options, including the -f, -p and --profiles flags.
Setting the COMPOSE_FILE environment variable is equivalent to passing the -f flag,
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable does the same as the -p flag,
COMPOSE_PROFILES environment variable is equivalent to the --profiles flag
and COMPOSE_PARALLEL_LIMIT does the same as the --parallel flag.
If flags are explicitly set on the command line, the associated environment variable is ignored.
Setting the COMPOSE_IGNORE_ORPHANS environment variable to true stops docker compose from detecting orphaned
containers for the project.
Setting the COMPOSE_MENU environment variable to false disables the helper menu when running docker compose up
in attached mode. Alternatively, you can also run docker compose up --menu=false to disable the helper menu.
Use Dry Run mode to test your command#
Use --dry-run flag to test a command without changing your application stack state.
Dry Run mode shows you all the steps Compose applies when executing a command, for example:
$ docker compose --dry-run up --build -d
[+] Pulling 1/1
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - db Pulled 0.9s
[+] Running 10/8
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - build service backend 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - ==> ==> writing image dryRun-754a08ddf8bcb1cf22f310f09206dd783d42f7dd 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - ==> ==> naming to nginx-golang-mysql-backend 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Network nginx-golang-mysql_default Created 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-db-1 Created 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-backend-1 Created 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-proxy-1 Created 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-db-1 Healthy 0.5s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-backend-1 Started 0.0s
✔ DRY-RUN MODE - Container nginx-golang-mysql-proxy-1 Started Started
From the example above, you can see that the first step is to pull the image defined by db service, then build the backend service.
Next, the containers are created. The db service is started, and the backend and proxy wait until the db service is healthy before starting.
Dry Run mode works with almost all commands. You cannot use Dry Run mode with a command that doesn't change the state of a Compose stack such as ps, ls, logs for example.