Again, please tell me if there is a better way to do this.

While testing docker, frequently I need to start/stop/rm containers. I got real sick of having to ls them and copy paste the container ID.

Using this alias, I just have to remember a single part of the name of the container, and I will get the container IDs that can then be included as part of another command:

$ alias dcl='_dcl(){ docker container ls -aq -f name="$1";}; _dcl'

$ dcl snikket
b3fcbc808cc9
1947885fbb24
054d67d2e8b9
d8fe9df5f61f

So now that I’m getting a list of IDs, I can easily, for example, pause all of them:

$ docker container pause $( dcl snikket )
Error response from daemon: container  is not running
Error response from daemon: container  is not running
Error response from daemon: container  is not running
Error response from daemon: container  is not running

The containers weren’t actually running, but this shows the alias working.

dcl obviously stands for ‘docker container ls’

  • knfrmity
    1·
    7 months ago

    You can use the container names to address containers. Whether this is a randomly generated name (docker run… with no --name flag), the compose working dir and service name, or the compose container_name var.

    I also rarely use the container command. docker is sufficient, or docker compose ... while in the working dir of a given compose stack.