Docker 1.13 Management Commands

Arun GuptaJanuary 24th, 2017Last Updated: January 23rd, 2017

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Docker 1.13 was released yesterday, congratulations!

A quick summary of the key features:

Compose file to deploy Swarm mode services
Improved CLI backwards compatibility
Clean-up commands
CLI restructured
Monitoring and Build improvements

Learn more details about these features in this video by @manomarks:

Getting Started with Docker 1.13

Use Docker for Mac or Windows to get started. Once installed, the version information looks like:

Client:
 Version:      1.13.0
 API version:  1.25
 Go version:   go1.7.3
 Git commit:   49bf474
 Built:        Wed Jan 18 16:20:26 2017
 OS/Arch:      darwin/amd64
 
Server:
 Version:      1.13.0
 API version:  1.25 (minimum version 1.12)
 Go version:   go1.7.3
 Git commit:   49bf474
 Built:        Wed Jan 18 16:20:26 2017
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64
 Experimental: true

Problems with Docker CLI

Docker 1.12 CLI has about ~40 top-level solo commands. While these commands wokred very well but they had a few issues:

The commands are listed in one list without any organization. That makes it difficult for newbies to get started and learn the commands. (#8756)
The command, such as docker inspect, also does not provide enough context whether they are operating on image or container. This mixing of image and container commands can cause confusion. (#13509)
There is no consistency of command names. For example docker images is a plural and gives the list of images where as docker ps is singular and gives the list of containers. And they of course have the naming inconsistency issue. (#8829)
Some of the commands like build and run are used heavily and then some arcane ones like pause and wait not so often. It does not seem fair to keep all the commands at the same level.

Docker 1.13 fixes this problem!

Docker Management Commands

Docker 1.13 groups the commands logically into management commands.

Here are the top-level solo commands now:

checkpoint  Manage checkpoints
container   Manage containers
image       Manage images
network     Manage networks
node        Manage Swarm nodes
plugin      Manage plugins
secret      Manage Docker secrets
service     Manage services
stack       Manage Docker stacks
swarm       Manage Swarm
system      Manage Docker
volume      Manage volumes

Now a list of images is obtained using docker image ls command instead of docker images command. Similar docker container lsshows the list of containers instead of docker ls. This brings a lot of consistency across the commands and that would make it intuitive and easier for newbie and pros to remember the commands.

Each management command has some similar set of sub-commands where they perform the operation on the command category:

SUB-COMMAND	PURPOSE
`ls`	List <category> (image, container, volume, secret, etc)
`rm`	Remove <category>
`inspect`	Inspect <category>

And there are other sub-commands based upon the management category.

Some of the heavily used commands are still at the top level.

By default, all the top-level commands are also shown. But you can set the DOCKER_HIDE_LEGACY_COMMANDS environment variable to show only the management commands. So even though docker --help will show all the solo and management commands. But the following commands will only show the new management commands:

DOCKER_HIDE_LEGACY_COMMANDS=true docker --help

The old syntax is still supported but it recommended to start moving to new commands.

A new Couchbase container can be started as:

 docker container run -d -p 8091-8094:8091-8094 -p 11210:11210 arungupta/couchbase

The list of images can be seen as:

docker image ls

Mapping Docker Solo to Management Commands

Let’s look at how the existing top-level commands match to the management commands:

1.12	1.13	Purpose
attach	container attach	Attach to a running container
build	image build	Build an image from a Dockerfile
commit	container commit	Create a new image from a container’s changes
cp	container cp	Copy files/folders between a container and the local filesystem
create	container commit	Create a new container
diff	container diff	Inspect changes on a container’s filesystem
events	system events	Get real time events from the server
exec	container exec	Run a command in a running container
export	container export	Export a container’s filesystem as a tar archive
history	image history	Show the history of an image
images	image ls	List images
import	image import	Import the contents from a tarball to create a filesystem image
info	system info	Display system-wide information
inspect	container inspect	Return low-level information on a container, image or task
kill	container kill	Kill one or more running containers
load	image load	Load an image from a tar archive or STDIN
login	login	Log in to a Docker registry.
logout	logout	Log out from a Docker registry.
logs	container logs	Fetch the logs of a container
network	network	Manage Docker networks
node	node	Manage Docker Swarm nodes
pause	container pause	Pause all processes within one or more containers
port	container port	List port mappings or a specific mapping for the container
ps	container ls	List containers
pull	image pull	Pull an image or a repository from a registry
push	image push	Push an image or a repository to a registry
rename	container rename	Rename a container
restart	container restart	Restart a container
rm	container rm	Remove one or more containers
rmi	image rm	Remove one or more images
run	container run	Run a command in a new container
save	image save	Save one or more images to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)
search	search	Search the Docker Hub for images
service	service	Manage Docker services
start	container start	Start one or more stopped containers
stats	container stats	Display a live stream of container(s) resource usage statistics
stop	container stop	Stop one or more running containers
swarm	swarm	Manage Docker Swarm
tag	image tag	Tag an image into a repository
top	container top	Display the running processes of a container
unpause	container unpause	Unpause all processes within one or more containers
update	container update	Update configuration of one or more containers
version	version	Show the Docker version information
volume	volume	Manage Docker volumes
wait	container wait	Block until a container stops, then print its exit code