Run a service automatically in a docker container

Question

I'm setting up a simple image: one that holds Riak (a NoSQL database). The image starts the Riak service with `riak start` as a CMD. Now, if I run it as a daemon with `docker run -d quintenk/riak-dev`, it does start the Riak process (I can see that in the logs). However, it closes automatically after a few seconds. If I run it using `docker run -i -t quintenk/riak-dev /bin/bash` the riak process is not started (UPDATE: see answers for an explanation for this). In fact, no services are running at all. I can start it manually using the terminal, but I would like Riak to start automatically. I figure this behavior would occur for other services as well, Riak is just an example. So, running/restarting the container should automatically start Riak. What is the correct approach of setting this up? For reference, here is the Dockerfile with which the image can be created (UPDATE: altered using the chosen answer): ``` FROM ubuntu:12.04 RUN apt-get update RUN apt-get install -y openssh-server…

Accepted Answer

To keep docker containers running, you need to keep a process active in the foreground.

So you could probably replace that last line in your Dockerfile with

```
CMD /bin/riak console
```

Or even

```
CMD /bin/riak start && tail -F /var/log/riak/erlang.log.1
```

Note that you can't have multiple lines of CMD statements, only the last one gets run.

Run a service automatically in a docker container

Solution

Problem