How to start docker container as server
docker, linux, lxc, ubuntu
Solution
The final argument to `docker run` is the command to run within the container. When you run `docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash`, you're running `bash` in the container and nothing more. You actually want to run your web application in a container and to keep that container alive, so you should do `docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /path/to/yourapp`.
But your application probably depends on some configuration in order to run. If it reads its configuration from environment variables, you can use the `-e key=value` arguments with `docker run`. If your application needs a configuration file to be in place, you should probably use a `Dockerfile` to set up the configuration first.
This article provides a nice complete example of running a node application in a container.
Problem
I would like to run a docker container that hosts a simple web application, however I do not understand how to design/run the image as a server. For example: ``` docker run -d -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash ``` This will start and immediately shutdown the container. Instead we can start it interactively: ``` docker run -i -p 80:80 ubuntu:14.04 /bin/bash ``` This works, but now I have to keep open the interactive shell for every container that is running? I would rather just start it and have it running in the background. A hack would be using a command that never returns: ``` docker run -d -p 80:80 {image} tail -F /var/log/kern.log ``` But now I cannot connect to the shell anymore, to inspect what is going on if the application is acting up. Is there a way to start the container in the background (as we would do for a vm), in a way that allows for attaching/detaching a shell from the host? Or am I completely missing the point?