Search⌘ K
AI Features

Start Apps Using Container

Understand how Docker containers start applications by using Entrypoint and Cmd instructions or command line arguments. Learn to check image metadata for these instructions and how to control app startup behavior inside containers. Practice running containers with custom commands and managing their lifecycle using Docker CLI.

In the previous lesson, we created a container running a web app. But how did the container know which app to start and how to start it?

Different ways to start an app in a container

There are three ways we can tell Docker how to start an app in a container:

  1. An Entrypoint instruction in the image
  2. A Cmd instruction in the image
  3. A CLI argument

We’ll learn more about these in the next chapter, but the Entrypoint and Cmd instructions are optional image metadata that store the command Docker uses to start the default ...