So far, when we've operated on the containers, we've always used auto-generated names. This approach has some advantages, such as the names being unique (no naming conflicts) and automatic (no need to do anything). In many cases, however, it's better to give a user-friendly name to the container or the image.
There are two good reasons to name the container: convenience and the possibility of automation. Let's look at why:
- Convenience: It's simpler to make any operations on the container when addressing it by name than by checking the hashes or the auto-generated name
- Automation: Sometimes, we would like to depend on the specific naming of the container
For example, we would like to have containers that depend on each other and to have one linked to another. Therefore, we need to know their names.
To name a container, we use the --name
parameter:
$ docker run -d --name tomcat tomcat
We can check (with docker ps
) that the container has a meaningful name. Also...