How to run docker-compose up -d at system start up?

To let the containers autostart at startup point, I tried to add the command:

cd directory_has_docker-compose.yml && docker-compose up -d in /etc/rc.local.

but then after I reboot the machine, the containers not work.

How run docker-compose up -d at system start up?

When we use crontab or the deprecated /etc/rc.local file, we need a delay (e.g. sleep 10, depending on the machine) to make sure that system services are available. Usually, systemd (or upstart) is used to manage which services start when the system boots. You can try use the similar configuration for this:

# /etc/systemd/system/docker-compose-app.service

[Unit]
Description=Docker Compose Application Service
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
WorkingDirectory=/srv/docker
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose up -d
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose down
TimeoutStartSec=0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Or, if you want run without the -d flag:

# /etc/systemd/system/docker-compose-app.service

[Unit]
Description=Docker Compose Application Service
Requires=docker.service
After=docker.service

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/srv/docker
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose up
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/docker-compose down
TimeoutStartSec=0
Restart=on-failure
StartLimitIntervalSec=60
StartLimitBurst=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Change the WorkingDirectory parameter with your dockerized project path. And enable the service to start automatically:

systemctl enable docker-compose-app

You should be able to add:

restart: always 

to every service you want to restart in the docker-compose.yml file.

See: https://github.com/compose-spec/compose-spec/blob/master/spec.md#restart

If your docker.service enabled on system startup

$ sudo systemctl enable docker

and your services in your docker-compose.yml has

restart: always

all of the services run when you reboot your system if you run below command only once

docker-compose up -d

I tried restart: always, it works at some containers(like php-fpm), but i faced the problem that some containers(like nginx) is still not restarting after reboot.

Solved the problem.

crontab -e

@reboot (sleep 30s ; cd directory_has_dockercomposeyml ; /usr/local/bin/docker-compose up -d )&

Use restart: always in your docker compose file.

Docker-compose up -d will launch container from images again. Use docker-compose start to start the stopped containers, it never launches new containers from images.

nginx:   
    restart: always   
    image: nginx   
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"   links:
      - other_container:other_container

Also you can write the code up in the docker file so that it gets created first, if it has the dependency of other containers.

As an addition to user39544's answer, one more type of syntax for crontab -e:

@reboot sleep 60 && /usr/local/bin/docker-compose -f /path_to_your_project/docker-compose.yml up -d

restart: unless-stopped

> docker-compose.yml