how to get docker-compose to use the latest image from repository

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I simply cannot get docker-compose up to use the latest image from our registry without first removing the old containers from the system completely. It looks like compose is using the previously started image even though docker-compose pull has fetched a newer image.

I looked at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32612650/how-to-get-docker-compose-to-always-start-fresh-images which seemed to be similar to my issue, but none of the provided solutions there work for me, since I'm looking for a solution I can use on the production server and there I don't want to be removing all containers before starting them again (possible data loss?). I would like for compose only to detect the new version of the changed images, pull them and then restart the services with those new images.

I created a simple test project for this in which the only goal is to get a version nr to increase on each new build. The version nr is displayed if I browse to the nginx server that is created (this works as expected locally).

docker version: 1.11.2 docker-compose version: 1.7.1 OS: tested on both CentOS 7 and OS X 10.10 using docker-toolbox

My docker-compose.yml:

version: '2'
services:
  application:
    image: ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev
    volumes:
      - /var/www/html
    tty: true

  nginx:
    build: nginx
    ports:
      - "80:80"
    volumes_from:
      - application
    volumes:
      - ./logs/nginx/:/var/log/nginx
  php:
    container_name: buildchaintest_php_1
    build: php-fpm
    expose:
      - "9000"
    volumes_from:
      - application
    volumes:
      - ./logs/php-fpm/:/var/www/logs

on our jenkins server I run the following to build and tag the image

cd $WORKSPACE && PROJECT_VERSION=$(cat VERSION)-dev
/usr/local/bin/docker-compose rm -f
/usr/local/bin/docker-compose build
docker tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:$PROJECT_VERSION
docker push ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest

this seems to be doing what it's supposed to be since I get a new version tag in our repository each time the build completes and the version nr has been bumped.

If I now run

docker-compose pull && docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

in a folder on my computer, where the contents is only the docker-compose.yml and the necessary Dockerfiles to build the nginx and php services, the output I get is not the latest version number as has been tagged in the registry or is shown in the docker-compose.yml (0.1.8), but the version before that, which is 0.1.7. However the output of the pull command would suggest that a new version of the image was fetched:

Pulling application (ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:latest)...
latest: Pulling from ourcompany/buildchaintest
Digest: sha256:8f7a06203005ff932799fe89e7756cd21719cccb9099b7898af2399414bfe62a
Status: Downloaded newer image for docker.locotech.fi:5000/locotech/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev

Only if I run

docker-compose stop && docker-compose rm -f

and then run the docker-compose up command do I get the new version to show up on screen as expected.

Is this intended behaviour of docker-compose? i.e. should I always do a docker-compose rm -f before running up again, even on production servers? Or am I doing something against the grain here, which is why it's not working?

The goal is to have our build process build and create tagged versions of the images needed in a docker-compose.yml, push those to our private registry and then for the "release to production-step" to simply copy the docker-compose.yml to the production server and run a docker-compose pull && docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d for the new image to start in production. If anyone has tips on this or can point to a best practices tutorial for this kind of setup that would be much appreciated also.

in order to make sure, that you are using the latest version for your :latest tag from your registry (e.g. docker hub) you need to also pull the latest tag again. in case it changed, the diff will be downloaded and started when you docker-compose up again.

so this would be the way to go:

docker-compose stop
docker-compose rm -f
docker-compose pull   
docker-compose up -d

i glued this into an image that i run to start docker-compose and make sure images stay up-to-date: https://hub.docker.com/r/stephanlindauer/docker-compose-updater/

To get the latest images use docker-compose build --pull

I use below command which is really 3 in 1

docker-compose down && docker-compose build --pull && docker-compose up -d

This command will stop the services, pulls the latest image and then starts the services.

> [EDIT] DO NOT USE
The below is in the spec but, as pointed out in the comments, has not been implemented yet (docker-compose 1.29.2 and 2).

Since 2020-05-07, the docker-compose spec also defines the "pull_policy" property for a service:

version: '3.7'

services:
  my-service:
    image: someimage/somewhere
    pull_policy: always

The docker-compose spec says:

pull_policy defines the decisions Compose implementations will make when it starts to pull images.

Possible values are (tl;dr, check spec for more details):

• always: always pull
• never: don't pull (breaks if the image can not be found)
• missing: pulls if the image is not cached
• build: always build or rebuild

I use the following even if my container is running and it updates just fine.

docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d

To close this question, what seemed to have worked is indeed running

docker-compose stop
docker-compose rm -f
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

I.e. remove the containers before running up again.

What one needs to keep in mind when doing it like this is that data volume containers are removed as well if you just run rm -f. In order to prevent that I specify explicitly each container to remove:

docker-compose rm -f application nginx php

As I said in my question, I don't know if this is the correct process. But this seems to work for our use case, so until we find a better solution we'll roll with this one.

Option down resolve this problem

I run my compose file:

docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up -d

then I delete all with down --rmi all

docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml down --rmi all

Stops containers and removes containers, networks, volumes, and images
created by `up`.

By default, the only things removed are:

- Containers for services defined in the Compose file
- Networks defined in the `networks` section of the Compose file
- The default network, if one is used

Networks and volumes defined as `external` are never removed.

Usage: down [options]

Options:
    --rmi type          Remove images. Type must be one of:
                        'all': Remove all images used by any service.
                        'local': Remove only images that don't have a custom tag
                        set by the `image` field.
    -v, --volumes       Remove named volumes declared in the `volumes` section
                        of the Compose file and anonymous volumes
                        attached to containers.
    --remove-orphans    Remove containers for services not defined in the
                        Compose file

I spent half a day with this problem. The reason was that be sure to check where the volume was recorded.

> volumes: > - api-data:/src/patterns

But the fact is that in this place was the code that we changed. But when updating the docker, the code did not change.

Therefore, if you are checking someone else's code and for some reason you are not updating, check this.

And so in general this approach works:

> docker-compose down

> docker-compose build

> docker-compose up -d

docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d
docker image prune -af

It works for me.

Pull the newest image first, Than update the container, Finally clean images that we don't need.

Pull new Image: docker-compose pull

Rebuild docker container with new Image: docker-compose up --force-recreate --build -d

Delete unused Images: docker image prune -f

I've seen this occur in our 7-8 docker production system. Another solution that worked for me in production was to run

docker-compose down
docker-compose up -d

this removes the containers and seems to make 'up' create new ones from the latest image.

This doesn't yet solve my dream of down+up per EACH changed container (serially, less down time), but it works to force 'up' to update the containers.

If the docker compose configuration is in a file, simply run:

docker-compose -f appName.yml down && docker-compose -f appName.yml pull && docker-compose -f appName.yml up -d

But

>https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/up/ >-quiet-pull Pull without printing progress information

docker-compose up --quiet-pull

not work ?

Your docker-compose.yml uses image to refer to ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev. That means that running docker-compose build doesn’t take any action in regards to ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev. There must be commands like the following run somewhere:

docker build -t ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev
docker push ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev

This would put the versioned build into your repository. But it would not update its latest tag. That would still point to the prior version (e.g., 0.1.7-dev).

Then, you ran the other commands on your jenkins:

cd $WORKSPACE && PROJECT_VERSION=$(cat VERSION)-dev
/usr/local/bin/docker-compose rm -f
/usr/local/bin/docker-compose build
docker tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:$PROJECT_VERSION
docker push ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest

As part of docker-compose build, you are effectively running docker pull ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev on your server. However, that does not account for how the tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:latest (which you refer to in the command docker tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:$PROJECT_VERSION) got onto your server. If the latest tag was not defined by something else beforehand, that docker tag command would give this error: No such image: ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:latest. So, prior to running the commands you showed, your jenkins server must have run something like the following:

docker pull ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest

This command would cause it to pull whatever is set to latest at that time in your repository. Because you gave no proof that you ever pushed your newly build buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev as buildchaintest:latest prior to running the above docker pull command, we have to assume that this is where the old version comes from. As a result, your tag command effectively does this:

docker tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:latest ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev
docker push ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev

Which, if latest is pointing to the same thing at 0.1.7-dev, is the same as doing:

docker tag ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.7-dev ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev
docker push ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev

Then, later, when you run docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d, of course it will pull what is set in the repository as ourprivate.docker.reg:5000/ourcompany/buildchaintest:0.1.8-dev which should be the old version because you tagged 0.1.7-dev as 0.1.8-dev.

Notes

You seem to be assuming that docker-compose build does something related to building buildchaintest. However, it does not. You set image but not build in your docker-compose.yml. That means docker-compose build will not build the buildchaintest docker image—it will just directly pull and run the docker image tag. Since docker-compose build doesn’t attempt to build buildchaintest, there’s no point to trying to tag or push that image after invoking it.

Also, docker-compose push exists and would do all of the tagging and pushing of things if you specify both build and image (because then image is used to inform docker-compose that it should set a tag for the built thing). This would push the correct tags (and would correctly be a no-op for your docker-compose.yml file).

Your docker-compose has build in it without image. Those things will be built wherever you run docker-compose up. So there is no point (unless you add image to set tags and save those built images and use docker-compose push) in running docker-compose build on the build server (beyond testing that building runs to completion). You’re not saving yourself any time or reducing the work performed by servers during deployment. You’re increasing the number of times things are built and the variability between nodes in your system (as whatever is built on your build server will be different (e.g., file timestamps, updated image tags) than whatever is running on your server.

Unfortunately, your question is not trustworthy. You use commands as if they have different behaviors than they are supposed to have. I am sorry to attack your question, but I have learned some surprising (to me) things about how docker tag and docker-compose work as a result. Thanks!

tl;dr

Make sure that you actually tag and push the correct image into your repository!

The docker-compose documentation for the 'up' command clearly states that it updates the container should the image be changed since the last 'up' was performed:

>If there are existing containers for a service, and the service’s configuration or image was changed after the container’s creation, docker-compose up picks up the changes by stopping and recreating the containers (preserving mounted volumes).

So by using 'stop' followed by 'pull' and then 'up' this should therefore avoid issues of lost volumes for the running containers, except of course, for containers whose images have been updated.

I am currently experimenting with this process and will include my results in this comment shortly.

I am using following command to get latest images

sudo docker-compose down -rmi all

sudo docker-compose up -d