How to Enter a Docker Container Shell

To start an interactive bash shell in a Docker container, you can use the docker exec command that allows you to execute commands in running containers.

$ docker exec -it <container> /bin/bash

Where container is either the name or the ID of a Docker container that can be obtained using the docker ps command.

You may need to run a single command in a running Docker container. Instead of starting an interactive shell session, you can use the -c flag (short for command ) of the bash utility which will execute the specified command.

$ docker exec <container> /bin/bash -c '<command>'

Where:

• container is either the name or the identifier of a container.
• command is the command you want to run in the container.

Here is a simple example for a single command execution (in a running container).

 $ docker exec 14c5r /bin/bash -c 'ls -la'

Hope this short post helped.