How can I make Docker container shared files with host appeared in the container?

Question

I'm trying to create a container to run a program. I'm using a pre-configured image and now I need to run the program. However, it's a machine learning program and I need a dataset from my computer to run.

The file is too large to be copied to the container. It would be best if the program running in the container searched the dataset in a local directory of my computer, but I don't know how I can do this.

Well, I have made the shared folder from my machine appeared using docker run -it -v ~/Volumes/Data/Studies/PhD\Work/gitlab/J2/ydk-py:/ydk-py ydkdev/ydk-py in the container, but all files in folder ydk-py are not shown. This is the safe, usually-desired behavior. But for development and instance setup, it would be immensely useful to have access to an existing file structure.

Answer 1

docker run with -v will automatically mount sub-directories. In your case you are using relative path, which you need to use absolute path as per this documentation. So change your command from

docker run -it -v ~/Volumes/Data/Studies/PhD\Work/gitlab/J2/ydk-py:/ydk-py ydkdev/ydk-py

to

docker run -it -v /home/<what ever user>/Volumes/Data/Studies/PhD\Work/gitlab/J2/ydk-py:/ydk-py ydkdev/ydk-py

it will work. Make sure you have enough permissions on directory that you are trying to mount.