Exploring Docker container's file system

Here are a couple different methods...

A) Use docker exec (easiest)

Docker version 1.3 or newer supports the command exec that behave similar to nsenter. This command can run new process in already running container (container must have PID 1 process running already). You can run /bin/bash to explore container state:

docker exec -t -i mycontainer /bin/bash

see Docker command line documentation

B) Use Snapshotting

You can evaluate container filesystem this way:

# find ID of your running container:
docker ps

# create image (snapshot) from container filesystem
docker commit 12345678904b5 mysnapshot

# explore this filesystem using bash (for example)
docker run -t -i mysnapshot /bin/bash

This way, you can evaluate filesystem of the running container in the precise time moment. Container is still running, no future changes are included.

You can later delete snapshot using (filesystem of the running container is not affected!):

docker rmi mysnapshot

C) Use ssh

If you need continuous access, you can install sshd to your container and run the sshd daemon:

 docker run -d -p 22 mysnapshot /usr/sbin/sshd -D
 
 # you need to find out which port to connect:
 docker ps

This way, you can run your app using ssh (connect and execute what you want).

D) Use nsenter

Use nsenter, see Why you don't need to run SSHd in your Docker containers

The short version is: with nsenter, you can get a shell into an existing container, even if that container doesn’t run SSH or any kind of special-purpose daemon

UPDATE: EXPLORING!

This command should let you explore a running docker container:

docker exec -it name-of-container bash

The equivalent for this in docker-compose would be:

docker-compose exec web bash

(web is the name-of-service in this case and it has tty by default.)

Once you are inside do:

ls -lsa

or any other bash command like:

cd ..

---

This command should let you explore a docker image:

docker run --rm -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash name-of-image

once inside do:

ls -lsa

or any other bash command like:

cd ..

The -it stands for interactive... and tty.

---

This command should let you inspect a running docker container or image:

docker inspect name-of-container-or-image

You might want to do this and find out if there is any bash or sh in there. Look for entrypoint or cmd in the json return.

NOTE: This answer relies on commen tool being present, but if there is no bash shell or common tools like ls present you could first add one in a layer if you have access to the Dockerfile: example for alpine:

RUN apk add --no-cache bash

Otherwise if you don't have access to the Dockerfile then just copy the files out of a newly created container and look trough them by doing:

docker create <image>  # returns container ID the container is never started.
docker cp <container ID>:<source_path> <destination_path>
docker rm <container ID>
cd <destination_path> && ls -lsah

see docker exec documentation

see docker-compose exec documentation

see docker inspect documentation

see docker create documentation

In case your container is stopped or doesn't have a shell (e.g. hello-world mentioned in the installation guide, or non-alpine traefik), this is probably the only possible method of exploring the filesystem.

You may archive your container's filesystem into tar file:

docker export adoring_kowalevski > contents.tar

Or list the files:

docker export adoring_kowalevski | tar t

Do note, that depending on the image, it might take some time and disk space.