docker-management

Check the container logs with docker logs NAME to see the error, then try running the image interactively with docker run -it --entrypoint /bin/sh IMAGE to inspect the environment. Immediate exits usually mean the main process finished or crashed.

Start with docker system df to see what consumes space, then run targeted cleanup: docker container prune for stopped containers, docker image prune for dangling images, and docker volume prune for unused volumes. Avoid docker system prune -a --volumes unless you confirm data loss is acceptable.

docker run starts a single container with flags passed on the command line, while docker compose up starts multi-service stacks defined in a compose.yml file with networking, dependencies, and healthchecks configured declaratively.

The application inside the container is likely binding to 127.0.0.1 instead of 0.0.0.0, making it unreachable from outside. Also verify the port mapping with docker port NAME and confirm the -p host:container flag was set correctly.

Use multi-stage builds to separate build tools from the runtime, choose slim or alpine base images like python:3.12-slim, add a .dockerignore file to exclude node_modules and .git, and order layers so dependencies come before source code.

No additional dependencies are needed beyond Docker Engine with Compose v2, which is included in modern Docker installations. Verify your setup with docker --version and docker compose version before starting.