Docker container inspect – Getting details of a container

To get the details of a container we can use docker inspect command like this –

docker inspect {container_id}

Or this –

docker inspect {container_name}

Let’s see this in action. First we will start a node container using run command –

docker run -idt --name my-node-container node

You can see that we applied custom name and used -idt flags. Now let’s inspect this container –

docker inspect my-node-container

Understanding Inspect Response

You can see from the image that we got a json. It is incomplete in the image. When you run this command on your terminal, you will get a huge json with tons of data. The actual json will look like this –

[
    {
        "Id": "83ad004978c....",
        "Created": "2022-07-21T06:49:36.461026749Z",
        "Path": "docker-entrypoint.sh",
        "Args": [
            "node"
        ],
        "State": {
            "Status": "running",
            "Running": true,
            "Paused": false,
            "Restarting": false,
            "OOMKilled": false,
            "Dead": false,
            "Pid": 1447,
            "ExitCode": 0,
            "Error": "",
            "StartedAt": "2022-07-21T06:49:37.010693223Z",
            "FinishedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z"
        },
        "Image": "sha256:a67015ce5a5....",
        "ResolvConfPath": "/var/lib/docker/containers/83ad004..../resolv.conf",
        "HostnamePath": "/var/lib/docker/containers/83ad0..../hostname",
        "HostsPath": "/var/lib/docker/containers/83ad00..../hosts",
        "LogPath": "/var/lib/docker/containers/83ad00....-json.log",
        "Name": "/my-node-container",
        "RestartCount": 0,
        "Driver": "overlay2",
        "Platform": "linux",
        "MountLabel": "",
        "ProcessLabel": "",
        "AppArmorProfile": "",
        "ExecIDs": null,
        "HostConfig": {
            "Binds": null,
            "ContainerIDFile": "",
            "LogConfig": {
                "Type": "json-file",
                "Config": {}
            },
            "NetworkMode": "default",
            "PortBindings": {},
            "RestartPolicy": {
                "Name": "no",
                "MaximumRetryCount": 0
            },
            "AutoRemove": false,
            "VolumeDriver": "",
            "VolumesFrom": null,
            "CapAdd": null,
            "CapDrop": null,
            "CgroupnsMode": "host",
            "Dns": [],
            "DnsOptions": [],
            "DnsSearch": [],
            "ExtraHosts": null,
            "GroupAdd": null,
            "IpcMode": "private",
            "Cgroup": "",
            "Links": null,
            "OomScoreAdj": 0,
            "PidMode": "",
            "Privileged": false,
            "PublishAllPorts": false,
            "ReadonlyRootfs": false,
            "SecurityOpt": null,
            "UTSMode": "",
            "UsernsMode": "",
            "ShmSize": 67108864,
            "Runtime": "runc",
            "ConsoleSize": [
                30,
                120
            ],
            "Isolation": "",
            "CpuShares": 0,
            "Memory": 0,
            "NanoCpus": 0,
            "CgroupParent": "",
            "BlkioWeight": 0,
            "BlkioWeightDevice": [],
            "BlkioDeviceReadBps": null,
            "BlkioDeviceWriteBps": null,
            "BlkioDeviceReadIOps": null,
            "BlkioDeviceWriteIOps": null,
            "CpuPeriod": 0,
            "CpuQuota": 0,
            "CpuRealtimePeriod": 0,
            "CpuRealtimeRuntime": 0,
            "CpusetCpus": "",
            "CpusetMems": "",
            "Devices": [],
            "DeviceCgroupRules": null,
            "DeviceRequests": null,
            "KernelMemory": 0,
            "KernelMemoryTCP": 0,
            "MemoryReservation": 0,
            "MemorySwap": 0,
            "MemorySwappiness": null,
            "OomKillDisable": false,
            "PidsLimit": null,
            "Ulimits": null,
            "CpuCount": 0,
            "CpuPercent": 0,
            "IOMaximumIOps": 0,
            "IOMaximumBandwidth": 0,
            "MaskedPaths": [
                "/proc/asound",
                "/proc/acpi",
                "/proc/kcore",
                "/proc/keys",
                "/proc/latency_stats",
                "/proc/timer_list",
                "/proc/timer_stats",
                "/proc/sched_debug",
                "/proc/scsi",
                "/sys/firmware"
            ],
            "ReadonlyPaths": [
                "/proc/bus",
                "/proc/fs",
                "/proc/irq",
                "/proc/sys",
                "/proc/sysrq-trigger"
            ]
        },
        "GraphDriver": {
            "Data": {
                "LowerDir": "....",
                "MergedDir": "/var/lib/docker/overlay2/35e..../merged",
                "UpperDir": "/var/lib/docker/overlay2/35ea..../diff",
                "WorkDir": "/var/lib/docker/overlay2/35eae..../work"
            },
            "Name": "overlay2"
        },
        "Mounts": [],
        "Config": {
            "Hostname": "83ad004978c6",
            "Domainname": "",
            "User": "",
            "AttachStdin": false,
            "AttachStdout": false,
            "AttachStderr": false,
            "Tty": true,
            "OpenStdin": true,
            "StdinOnce": false,
            "Env": [
                "PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin",
                "NODE_VERSION=18.5.0",
                "YARN_VERSION=1.22.19"
            ],
            "Cmd": [
                "node"
            ],
            "Image": "node",
            "Volumes": null,
            "WorkingDir": "",
            "Entrypoint": [
                "docker-entrypoint.sh"
            ],
            "OnBuild": null,
            "Labels": {}
        },
        "NetworkSettings": {
            "Bridge": "",
            "SandboxID": "5644bd1....",
            "HairpinMode": false,
            "LinkLocalIPv6Address": "",
            "LinkLocalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
            "Ports": {},
            "SandboxKey": "/var/run/docker/netns/5644bd1cf63a",
            "SecondaryIPAddresses": null,
            "SecondaryIPv6Addresses": null,
            "EndpointID": "03a546....",
            "Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
            "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
            "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
            "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
            "IPPrefixLen": 16,
            "IPv6Gateway": "",
            "MacAddress": "02:42:ac:11:00:02",
            "Networks": {
                "bridge": {
                    "IPAMConfig": null,
                    "Links": null,
                    "Aliases": null,
                    "NetworkID": "5ebed356....",
                    "EndpointID": "03a546ca....,
                    "Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
                    "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
                    "IPPrefixLen": 16,
                    "IPv6Gateway": "",
                    "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
                    "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
                    "MacAddress": "02:42:ac:11:00:02",
                    "DriverOpts": null
                }
            }
        }
    }
]

This returns a lot of important information like container id, name, ports, environment variables, network, volume, entrypoint etc.