How to restart an existing Docker container in restart="always" mode?

Solution 1:

We now have docker update, which allows changing the restart policy of a running container.

docker update --restart=always <CONTAINER ID>

There are three other options:

• no (default)
• on-failure
• unless-stopped

Please refer to the link for details.

Solution 2:

Ok, so to answer my own question, it seems that it's not possible just to restart the same container with --restart=always, because that's something you have to do when you run a container for the first time and not a parameter that you can use when you start an existing container.

There are three possible work-arounds to this:

1. As @user2915097 stated, you can abandon the original container (stopping it and then deleting it with docker rm <CONTAINER ID>to tidy up). Then just run a new container from the original image specifying the -restart=always option this time.

2. If no volumes were used, so the changes are internal to the container, you need to commit the container to a new image and then run a new container from that image.

   docker commit <CONTAINER ID> <NEW IMAGE NAME>

   docker run -d --restart=always ... <NEW IMAGE NAME>

3. If volumes were used and all changes are restricted to the volumes, then you can run a second container with the --volumes-from parameter without having to commit a new version of the image. i.e.

   • docker stop <CONTAINER 1 NAME>
   • docker run -d --restart=always --volumes-from <CONTAINER 1 NAME> ... <ORIGINAL IMAGE NAME>

   It would then be safe to delete Container 1, as the volumes will not be deleted whilst another container continues to use them.

I guess there is a fourth possibility too; if you used a volume(s) and you know that there have been changes to the container that aren't on the volume, then you'll have to use a combination of (2) and (3).

Solution 3:

Update: This worked to enable restart. But setting it back to no and it gets reset back to always and the container starts again! :( I'm going to leave this answer here in case someone figures out how this really works. I must be close!

Folks, I've found the most hacky solution that gets around copying containers etc.

vi /var/lib/docker/containers/$(docker inspect -f '{{ .Id }}' $ContainerID)/hostconfig.json

Search for "RestartPolicy". Set it to "no", "always" etc

Maybe someone could wrap that up in a script!?

Anyway, that piece of json along with the config.json would allow you to modify all sorts of things that you missed when creating your container.