Sitecore Docker cheat sheet
The official Docker documentation is very good, but it can be difficult to navigate. This topic lists some of the most useful commands for managing Sitecore with Docker in local development environments.
The examples assume that you use PowerShell as your command shell.
General commands
These commands show various information about Docker itself:
-
To list all available commands:
RequestResponsedocker help docker compose help
You can display detailed information for any specific command using
--help
:RequestResponsedocker <command> --help docker compose <command> --help
-
To display high-level information for your Docker environment (version, root directory, default isolation mode, and so on):
RequestResponsedocker info
Manage images
You use these commands to manage images:
-
To list images (use
-a
to include intermediate images):RequestResponsedocker image ls docker images
You can format the results with the
--format
option. See the Docker documentation for a list of valid placeholders. -
To remove images:
RequestResponsedocker image rm <image> docker rmi <image>
The
<image>
can be either the image ID or full name. The ID only requires the minimum number of characters to uniquely identify it. For example, given this image list:RequestResponseREPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore ltsc2019 8351e66084ac 2 months ago 4.82GB mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver 1809 880394ef5494 2 months ago 251MB
All 3 of these commands remove the nanoserver image:
RequestResponsedocker image rm mcr.microsoft.com/windows/nanoserver docker rmi 880394ef5494 docker rmi 88
-
To remove all images:
RequestResponsedocker rmi $(docker images -a -q)
To be more selective, use image list formatting combined with
findstr
. For example, to remove all images with a specific name or tag:RequestResponsedocker rmi $(docker images --format "{{.Repository}}:{{.Tag}}"|findstr "<search_text>")
-
To inspect images:
RequestResponsedocker image inspect <image> docker inspect <image>
This displays detailed information for an image, including:
-
ID: The full unique identifier of the image.
-
WorkingDir: The folder you are in when you run an interactive shell in the image. You use this when you extend an image with your own customizations.
-
Entrypoint: The default entrypoint when you run this image in a container. This is useful information when you use the image in Docker Compose, which allows overriding.
-
VirtualSize: The size of the image in bytes.
You can format the output.
-
Manage containers
You use these commands to manage containers:
-
To list containers (use
-a
to include stopped containers):RequestResponsedocker container ls docker ps
You can filter the results using the
-f
(or--filter
) option. For example, to show just the running Sitecore CM images:RequestResponsedocker ps -f "name=cm"
You can format the results with the
--format
option. See the Docker documentation for a list of valid placeholders. -
To remove containers (use
-v
to remove volumes as well):RequestResponsedocker container rm <container> docker rm <container>
Similar to images, the
<container>
can be either the container ID (full or partial) or full name. -
To remove all stopped containers:
RequestResponsedocker rm $(docker ps -a -q)
(Add
--force
to remove running containers as well.) -
To inspect containers:
RequestResponsedocker container inspect <container> docker inspect <container>
This displays detailed information for a container, including the following:
-
ID - the full unique identifier of the container.
-
Image - the image the container is running.
-
NetworkSettings - the network information including the Ports, IPAddress, and any Aliases.
-
LogPath - the file system path to the container's log file.
-
Volumes - displays any volume mappings between the host system and the container.
-
WorkingDir - this is where you are dropped when running an interactive shell in the container.
You can format the output.
-
-
To start and stop containers individually:
RequestResponsedocker container start <container> docker start <container> docker container stop <container> docker stop <container>
However, when you develop with Sitecore, you usually have multiple containers and use Docker Compose to start and stop containers.
-
To copy files between containers and the local file system:
RequestResponsedocker cp <src_path> <container>:<dest_path> docker cp <container>:<src_path> <dest_path>
For example, to copy a file to a container:
RequestResponsedocker cp file.txt 2c26f76568d4:/tools/
Or to copy a folder from a container:
RequestResponsedocker cp 2c26f76568d4:/inetpub/wwwroot/App_Config/ ./
NoteYour containers must be running with process isolation for this. File system operations with Hyper-V container are not supported.
-
To display logs:
RequestResponsedocker container logs <container> docker logs <container>
You can stream the log output using
-f
(or--follow
):RequestResponsedocker logs -f <container>
Type
Ctrl+C
to exit.Most containers generate a lot of entries, so you can use the
--tail
or--until
options to limit the amount. For example, to display only the last 20 log entries:RequestResponsedocker logs -f --tail 20 <container>
Format results
Many of the Docker commands provide the --format
or -f
option to format results, which allows you to format the output for display or even to pass to other scripts. The format string follows Go templating.
For inspect commands, the output data is already in JSON format, so the data structure is straightforward.
Some examples:
-
To get a container's image name:
RequestResponsedocker inspect --format='{{.Config.Image}}' <container>
-
To get a container's IP address:
RequestResponsedocker inspect --format='{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' <container>
The output from list commands is in a table format. The Docker documentation (see here for images, here for containers) has details about the available properties, or you can format the output as JSON as follows:
RequestResponsedocker images --format "{{json .}}" docker ps --format "{{json .}}"
-
To show a custom image list:
RequestResponsedocker images --format "{{.ID}}: {{.Repository}}"
-
To show a custom container list, using the
table
directive:RequestResponsedocker ps --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}\t{{.Status}}"
Open an interactive shell in an image
You can open an interactive shell prompt inside a Windows image. You can only use powershell
in images that support it. If omitted, the default cmd
shell is used:
docker run -it --rm <image> [powershell]
Type exit
to return out of the container to your previous shell session.
This starts a new container (run
), goes into an interactive shell (-it
), and then destroys the container after you exit (--rm
).
This does not work for all images, depending on the default ENTRYPOINT
. If this is the case, run it in detached mode:
docker run -d <image>
Then run an interactive shell in the running container.
Open an interactive shell in a container
You can open an interactive shell prompt inside a running Windows container using the following.You can only use powershell
in containers that support it:
docker exec -it <container> powershell
docker exec -it <container> cmd
Type exit
to return out of the container to your previous shell session.
Cleanup resources
Docker does not remove unused resources automatically. Unnecessary resources can therefore accumulate over time and use up disk space.
The most useful command to solve this issue is:
docker system prune
By default, you are prompted to continue. To bypass, use the -f
(or --force
) option.
This command removes:
-
All stopped containers.
-
All networks not used by at least one container.
-
All dangling images (not tagged and not referenced by any container).
-
All build caches.
This default is generally safe to use at any time. You can add the following options to be more aggressive about it:
-
--volumes
- Removes all volumes not used by at least one container -
-a
(or--all
) - Removes all images without at least one container associated with them
There are prune
commands for each individual Docker object (image, container, and so on), but those are used less often. See the Docker documentation for details.
Use Docker Compose
You run these commands from the location of your Compose file. They assume that your Compose file is called docker compose.yml
. They will also automatically load an additional docker compose.override.yml
, if such a file is present.
If your Compose files are named something else, use the -f
flag to specify explicitly:
docker compose -f docker compose.yml -f docker compose.dev.yml up -d
You can specify as many files as you need. Compose combines them into a single configuration based on the order, with subsequent files overriding/adding to their predecessors.
You can view the aggregated result using config
. For example:
docker compose -f docker compose.yml -f docker compose.dev.yml config
This shows your resolved application configuration, including combined compose files, .env
, and so on. You can also add the name of one or more services. This allows you to target individual services or containers. For example, given the following Compose file:
version: "3"
services:
mssql: [...]
solr: [...]
id: [...]
cm: [...]
You can restart
just the id and cm containers:
docker compose restart id cm
-
To create and start containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose up -d
This creates and run containers for all services that you have defined in your Compose configuration.
The
-d
(detached mode) starts the containers in the background and leaves them running. If you omit this, the container logs are streamed to the output, and you need to typeCtrl+C
to return to a prompt. This also stops and removes your containers. -
To stop containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose stop
This stops containers but does not remove the containers.
-
To start containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose start
This starts existing containers that you have previously stopped.
-
To restart containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose restart
This restarts all stopped and running containers.
-
To stop and remove containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose down
This stops all containers gracefully, and once all are stopped, it removes them. Any networks created by
up
are also removed. Use-v
to remove volumes. -
To list containers:
RequestResponsedocker compose ps
You can list the names of the services instead with the
--services
option. Use-a
to include stopped containers. -
To build images:
RequestResponsedocker compose build
This builds and creates images for all services that define a
build
.You can use the
--build
option withup
. This rebuilds and runs containers with the latest code:RequestResponsedocker compose up --build -d
-
To display logs:
RequestResponsedocker compose logs
This displays the logs from all containers. You can use the
--tail
option to limit the number of lines, and filter for specific containers. For example, to display only the last 20 log entries from yourcm
andxconnect
containers:RequestResponsedocker compose logs --tail 20 cm xconnect
You can also stream the log output with the
-f
(or--follow
) option:RequestResponsedocker compose logs -f --tail 20
Type
Ctrl+C
to exit.