When should I use Docker's container name?
DockerDocker Problem Overview
When I ran docker ps -a, I got
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
e3be2faeb751 centos:latest touch /var/log/test 2 minutes ago Exited (1) 2 minutes ago insane_kirch6
What is the name, insane_kirch6, for?
Docker Solutions
Solution 1 - Docker
You can name your own containers with --name when you use docker run. If you do not provide a name, Docker will generate a random one like the one you have.
Check their documentation for naming at Legacy container links, The importance of naming
Solution 2 - Docker
And even more importantly, you can run named containers again later with start:
docker start --interactive named-containter
Solution 3 - Docker
Not only for visibility, but it also can be used as container_id,
in docker commands like start, stop, exec, rm, ...
When you want to run a command in an existing container (running or exited), you will identify the container either by name or container_id.
Examples:
Create a container named qqqq and start a process "sleep" 1 minute, and then exit.
$ docker run --name qqqq ubuntu sleep 60
Run another command in the container qqqq:
$ docker exec qqqq ps -aef
UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD
root 1 0 0 04:21 ? 00:00:00 sleep 60
root 11 0 3 04:21 ? 00:00:00 ps -aef
Delete the container qqqq:
$ docker rm qqqq
qqqq