Is there a way to store files on the docker host which will survive host restarts?

Question

I am not looking to save or commit docker images or containers. This is a question on how to save files (e.g., to drive configs which can be volume mounted on docker containers).

I am looking for a way to save files on the docker host filesystem which will survive docker restarts e.g., boot2docker down + boot2docker up.

Answer 1

That would be using volumes (docker volumes create/ls/...):

• Those volumes can be mounted by containers (--volumes-from), part of the disk.vmdk which is the boot2docker VM disk stored on host.
• And they are persisted in /var/lib/docker/volumes. That will survive a boot2docker session (docker-machine stop/start)

If you really need to backup them directly on the host (outside the virtual disk), you can copy /var/lib/docker/volumes to /c/Users/... (or /Users/...).
A docker volume ls combined with docker volume inspect will list the folders within /var/lib/docker/volumes that you need to consider for backup.