How to prevent docker from starting a container automatically on system startup?

Docker starts a container on every system startup (debian) but I didn't create a service to do so. How can I prevent docker from doing that?

Docker will autostart any container with a RestartPolicy of 'always' when the docker service initially starts. You won't find any evidence of this within cron or any other normal system startup scripts; you'll have to dig into the container configuration to find it.

docker inspect my-container (Look for RestartPolicy in the output)

I've mostly had this situation occur when a container was created with --restart always, and the situation later changed such that I no longer wanted this to happen.

After docker 1.11, this is easy to fix

docker update --restart=no my-container

Original answer is here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37599128/docker-how-do-you-disable-auto-restart-on-a-container

The info is in /var/lib/docker/containers/<hash>/hostconfig.json (having root permissions)

check for RestartPolicy.Name = "always" in any of those files.

1. You can also take a look in System->Preferences->Startup Applications. (Search startup application app)

2. use this command : 'Crontab -l' (check any cronjob is set or not)

3. grep docker in /etc/init.d and if you find you can remove from there with sudo permission ( Make sure you dont change other files or anything else, do it on your risk )

4. sudo docker run --restart=no redis (replace redis with your container name)

Let me know if you still find any problem.

Launch Docker if not running. Click the Docker icon in the menu bar. Select Preferences... (or press Cmd-comma). Deselect 'Start Docker when you log in' on the General tab. Close the Preferences window. Quit Docker (Cmd-Q or use the menu).