Docker Exec: How to Connect to Your Containers Interactively

When using Docker, sometimes I want to connect to its containers using interactive commands.

In this article, I will show you how to do that with a simple shell command.

The command you need is:

$ docker exec -it <DOCKER_CONTAINER_NAME> bash

This command runs the bash command inside the container and gives you access to the bash shell of it.

When you enter this command, you will see the bash prompt like this:

bash-5.1$

This command uses the exec command with two options: -it. These options respectively enable an interactive shell and allocate a TTY.

Option	Description
-i, --interactive	connect to STDIN of the container
-t, --tty	Allocate a pseudo terminal

If you want to edit the container's files frequently, it's better to use Visual Studio Code and Docker extension for Visual Studio Code

References

• docker exec | Docker Docs
• Connecting to a Running Docker Container Shell | The .NET Tools Blog
• ２部: コンテナに接続する｜実践 Docker - ソフトウェアエンジニアの「Docker よくわからない」を終わりにする本
• Docker extension for Visual Studio Code