Compose FAQs
What is the difference between docker compose
and docker-compose
Version one of the Docker Compose command-line binary was first released in 2014. It was written in Python, and is invoked with docker-compose
. Typically, Compose V1 projects include a top-level version element in the compose.yml file, with values ranging from 2.0 to 3.8, which refer to the specific file formats.
Version two of the Docker Compose command-line binary was announced in 2020, is written in Go, and is invoked with docker compose
. Compose V2 ignores the version top-level element in the compose.yml file.
For further information, see History and development of Compose.
What's the difference between up
, run
, and start
?
Typically, you want docker compose up
. Use up
to start or restart all the
services defined in a compose.yml
. In the default "attached"
mode, you see all the logs from all the containers. In "detached" mode (-d
),
Compose exits after starting the containers, but the containers continue to run
in the background.
The docker compose run
command is for running "one-off" or "adhoc" tasks. It
requires the service name you want to run and only starts containers for services
that the running service depends on. Use run
to run tests or perform
an administrative task such as removing or adding data to a data volume
container. The run
command acts like docker run -ti
in that it opens an
interactive terminal to the container and returns an exit status matching the
exit status of the process in the container.
The docker compose start
command is useful only to restart containers
that were previously created but were stopped. It never creates new
containers.
Why do my services take 10 seconds to recreate or stop?
The docker compose stop
command attempts to stop a container by sending a SIGTERM
. It then waits
for a
default timeout of 10 seconds. After the timeout,
a SIGKILL
is sent to the container to forcefully kill it. If you
are waiting for this timeout, it means that your containers aren't shutting down
when they receive the SIGTERM
signal.
There has already been a lot written about this problem of processes handling signals in containers.
To fix this problem, try the following:
Make sure you're using the exec form of
CMD
andENTRYPOINT
in your Dockerfile.For example use
["program", "arg1", "arg2"]
not"program arg1 arg2"
. Using the string form causes Docker to run your process usingbash
which doesn't handle signals properly. Compose always uses the JSON form, so don't worry if you override the command or entrypoint in your Compose file.If you are able, modify the application that you're running to add an explicit signal handler for
SIGTERM
.Set the
stop_signal
to a signal which the application knows how to handle:services: web: build: . stop_signal: SIGINT
If you can't modify the application, wrap the application in a lightweight init system (like s6) or a signal proxy (like dumb-init or tini). Either of these wrappers takes care of handling
SIGTERM
properly.
How do I run multiple copies of a Compose file on the same host?
Compose uses the project name to create unique identifiers for all of a
project's containers and other resources. To run multiple copies of a project,
set a custom project name using the -p
command line option
or the
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME
environment variable.
Can I use JSON instead of YAML for my Compose file?
Yes. YAML is a superset of JSON so any JSON file should be valid YAML. To use a JSON file with Compose, specify the filename to use, for example:
$ docker compose -f docker-compose.json up
Should I include my code with COPY
/ADD
or a volume?
You can add your code to the image using COPY
or ADD
directive in a
Dockerfile
. This is useful if you need to relocate your code along with the
Docker image, for example when you're sending code to another environment
(production, CI, etc).
Use a volume
if you want to make changes to your code and see them
reflected immediately, for example when you're developing code and your server
supports hot code reloading or live-reload.
There may be cases where you want to use both. You can have the image
include the code using a COPY
, and use a volume
in your Compose file to
include the code from the host during development. The volume overrides
the directory contents of the image.