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Lab 07 : Understanding Docker Volumes

Difficulty: Intermediate

Time: 30 minutes

Tasks

What are Docker data volumes?

A data volume is a specially designated directory within one or more containers that bypasses Docker’s storage driver and interacts directly with the host file system. Data volumes provide several useful features for persistent or shared data:

  • Volumes are initialized when a container is created. If the container’s base image contains data at the specified mount point, that existing data is copied into the new volume upon volume initialization.
  • Data volumes can be shared and reused among containers.
  • Changes to a data volume are made directly to the host filesystem (vs. going through the storage driver)
  • Changes to a data volume will not be included when you update an image.
  • Data volumes persist even if the container itself is deleted.

Data volumes are designed to persist data, independent of the container’s lifecycle. Docker therefore never automatically deletes volumes when you remove a container, nor will it "garbage collect" volumes that are no longer referenced by a container.

Prerequisites

For this lab, please use node-0 and ensure no containers are running on that node. To check for running containers use the docker ps command.

Task 1: Implementing a volume via the Docker client

In this task, you're going to create a new container and add a file to it.

  1. SSH into your node-0 AWS instance with your supplied credentials, for example:

     ssh -i user23.pem [email protected]`

    Note: Your .pem filename and instance name will be different to those shown above.

  2. Pull down the official Nginx image.

     $ docker pull nginx

  3. Create a new volume named barcelona.

     $ docker volume create --name barcelona

    Your new volume is created on the host in the /var/lib/docker/volumes directory.

  4. List the volumes on your Docker host

     $ docker volume ls
 DRIVER              VOLUME NAME
 local               barcelona

    You should see the barcelona volume listed. You may see other volumes as well.

  5. Instantiate a Docker container with your barcelona volume.

     $ docker run -it -v barcelona:/barcelona --name volumeslab nginx /bin/bash

    This command creates an Nginx container named volumeslab. It also mounts your volume barcelona at /barcelona in the root of the container's file system. Then, the /bin/bash command opens an interactive shell inside the container.

    You are at your running container's shell prompt.

  6. Change into the /barcelona directory.

     $ cd /barcelona

  7. Create a file.

     $ touch file.txt

  8. List the directory contents to make sure the file exists.

     $ ls
 file.txt

  9. Press Ctrl+P and Ctrl+Q to exit the container shell.

    This key combination leaves the container running. You should return to your Docker host's shell.

  10. Ensure your container is still running:

    $ docker ps

    The output should be similar to:

    CONTAINER ID   IMAGE   COMMAND         CREATED             STATUS                           
0124480582a2   nginx   "/bin/bash"     6 minutes ago       Up 6 minutes

    The STATUS should show Up instead of Exited

Task 2: Understand how Docker represents volume data in the file system

Docker manages volumes independently from the storage driver system it uses to manage the container layers. This allows for data persistence; The volume is not destroyed when the container is destroyed.

In this task, you're going to take a quick look at where Docker stores volume data. Then, you'll change the volume on the Docker host file system and see the change appear in the container.

  1. Inspect the barcelona volume values.

     $ docker volume inspect barcelona

    Your output should be similar to:

     [
 	{
 		"Name": "barcelona",
 		"Driver": "local",
 		"Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/barcelona/_data"
 	}
 ]

    The volume mount point above is: /var/lib/docker/volumes/barcelona/_data

  2. Elevate your user privileges:

     $ sudo su

    You need superuser privileges to view the location of the Docker volume data in your host filesystem.

  3. Change to the barcelona data directory.

     $ cd /var/lib/docker/volumes/barcelona/_data

  4. List the directory contents.

     $ ls
 file.txt

    Notice the file you previously created file.txt is listed in the host directory.

  5. Create a new file.

     $ touch file2.txt

  6. Check thatfile.txt and file2.txt are in the directory.

     $ ls
 file2.txt file.txt

  7. Log back into the Nginx container's shell.

     $ docker exec -it volumeslab /bin/bash

  8. List the contents of the /barcelona directory.

     $ ls /barcelona
 file.txt file2.txt

    The file you created from the Docker host shell file2.txt should appear inside your running container.

  9. Exit the container and return to your Docker host.

     $ exit

Task 3: Deleting a volume

By default, when you destroy a container Docker does not remove any volumes associated with the container. You can, however, delete a given volume with the docker volume rm command.

  1. Stop the volumeslab container you created.

     $ docker stop volumeslab

  2. Remove the container.

     $ docker rm volumeslab

    Removing the containers does not remove the barcelona volume the container was using.

  3. Ensure the barcelona volume still exists.

     $ docker volume ls
 DRIVER              VOLUME NAME
 local               barcelona

    You may see other volumes listed in addition to barcelona.

  4. Elevate your privileges.

     $ sudo su

  5. List the contents of the barcelona volume directory.

     $ ls /var/lib/docker/volumes/barcelona/_data
 file.txt file2.txt

    The volume and its data are still intact.

  6. Exit elevated privileges.

     $ exit

  7. Remove the volume.

     $ docker volume rm barcelona
 barcelona

  8. Ensure the volume was removed.

     $ docker volume ls
 DRIVER              VOLUME NAME

    The barcelona volume is no longer listed, although other volumes may be.

Task 4: Map a host directory to a Docker volume

In the previous exercises, you were able to manipulate data files in a Docker volume via the host file system,. However, it was a bit cumbersome. You had to learn the mount point via docker volume inspect and elevate your privileges to create a new file. In practice, this workflow is impractical.

Thankfully there is an easier way to make local files available inside a running container. You can, instead, mount existing local files and directories as volumes into a running container. This allows developers, for instance, to hot-mount code into their containers, and have changes made locally reflected instantaneously in their containers.

In this example, you'll create two containers foo and bar. You'll modify some HTML in bar and then see how the changes are reflected immediately on the container-based website in foo. Additionally, you'll create a volume using the -v option with the docker run command. The lab switches between the containers so stay sharp as you read!

  1. Create a www subdirectory on your Docker host.

     $ mkdir ~/www

  2. Change into the www directory.

     $ cd ~/www

  3. Create an index.html file with some content.

    Be sure to use single quotes in the command/

     $ echo '<h1>Hola Barcelona!</h1>' > index.html

  4. Instantiate an Nginx container with the ~/www directory.

     $ docker run -d -v ~/www:/usr/share/nginx/html --name mywebserver -p 80:80 nginx

    This command maps the ~/www directory on the host to /usr/share/nginx/html in the running container. The usr/share/nginx/html is the default directory for serving web content with Nginx.

  5. In your browser navigate to the http://<docker host> address.

    For the, <docker host> use the name provided to you when you signed up for this lab. Your browser should display a website with your Hello, Barcelona message.

  6. Return to your Docker host’s terminal window.

  7. Update the index.html file.

    Be sure to use single quotes as shown.

     $ echo '<h1>Adios Barcelona!</h1>' > index.html

  8. Reload your website in your browser,

    The change to the local filesystem is immediately reflected by the running Nginx container.

Task 5: Use a volume to share data between containers

You can also use volumes to share data between containers. For instance, one container could write data to a log file, and a second container could read that data and provide a graphical interpretation.

In this example, you'll create a new file from one container in a directory that is a mount point for a named container. Then, you'll list the directory from another container.

Note: This example is purely for academic purposes. In a real-world deployment, it’s extremely dangerous to have multiple containers writing to the same volume without adequate application awareness and protection against conflicts.

  1. Create a new named volume shared-data.

     $ docker volume create --name shared-data
 shared-data

  2. Create a new container foo and mount the shared-data volume.

     $ docker run -it -v shared-data:/foo --name foo nginx /bin/bash

    This command mounts shared-data to the /foo directory and logs you into the container's shell.

  3. Create a new file in the /foo directory.

    In the command below, be careful to use the right single quote (‘) and double quotes (").

     $ echo 'Tu dices "hola"' > /foo/file.txt

    The /foo directory is mapped to your shared-data volume.

  4. Verify the content of your new file.

     $ cat /foo/file.txt
 Tu dices "hola"

  5. Press Ctrl-P and then Ctrl-Q on you keyboard.

    This exits the container shell but leaves the container running.

  6. Create a second, bar container.

    The command mounts the existing shared-data volume to the container's /bar directory and starts a shell.

     $ docker run -it -v shared-data:/bar --name bar nginx /bin/bash

    You are now working in the shell of your Docker container.

  7. Create a new file in the /bar directory.

    Be careful to use the right single quote (‘) and double quotes ("). Also, be sure to use >> double pipes otherwise you will overwrite your original file.

     $ echo 'Y yo digo "adios"' >> /bar/file.txt

  8. Verify the content of your new file.

     $ cat /bar/file.txt
 Tu dices "hola"
 Y yo digo "adios"

    The text you created in the first container (Tu dices "hola") is still accessible in this container as well as the text you just added (Y yo digo “adios”).

  9. Exit the bar container.

     $ exit

    This closes the shell and stops the container.

  10. Log back into the shell of the foo container.

    $ docker exec -it foo /bin/bash

    You are now working in the shell of your Docker container.

  11. Look for the changes you made in the bar container in this container.

    $ cat /foo/file.txt
Tu dices "hola"
Y yo digo "adios"

  12. Exit and stop the foo container.

    $ exit

Conclusion

In this lab, you learned the basics of Docker volumes. You created a new Docker volume using the Docker client, and then explored the host file system to understand the relationship between the local file system and the mounted volume in the container. You then deleted the volume, and mapped a new volume to a specific directory on the host file system. Finally we looked at how you can share a volume between multiple containers.

Feel free to continue exploring Docker volumes.

Share on Twitter!

Cleanup

If you plan to do another lab, you need to cleanup your EC2 instances. Cleanup removes any environment variables, configuration changes, Docker images, and running containers. To do a clean up,

  1. Log into each EC2 instance you used and run the following:

     $ source /home/ubuntu/cleanup.sh