How do I write a script that kills a docker container?

Question

I wrote a script to build and run a docker container:

docker build --rm -t 'mine' . && docker run -p 3000:3000 -it 'mine'

If I run it two times in a row, the previous one is already running so it doesn't start. To fix this, I wrote a line to kill all docker containers:

docker kill $(docker ps -q) || true
docker build --rm -t 'mine' . && docker run -p 3000:3000 -it 'mine'

This works, but now I have multiple projects on my machine that use docker, and this kills all of them, which isn't what I want. I only want it to kill the docker container in this project.

How can I modify this script so it only kills the docker container(s) that are started in the second line?

Have a look at [`docker-compose`](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) — hek2mgl, Sep 06 '19 at 22:08
Possible duplicate of [Kill a Docker Container](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51015597/kill-a-docker-container) — jeremysprofile, Sep 06 '19 at 22:28
@jeremysprofile I'd say it's not a dupe because the answer has this line: "Then copy the CONTAINER ID of the running container and execute the following command". I want to do this all in a script — Daniel Kaplan, Sep 06 '19 at 22:32
@DanielKaplan, I'd say it is a dupe because if you scrolled down one more answer, there is an alternative that says `docker kill container_name`. In your case, it would be `docker kill mine` — jeremysprofile, Sep 06 '19 at 22:36
@jeremysprofile Actually, I tried that and it didn't work. I don't say `docker kill mine`, I say `docker kill container_name` which I have to get from `docker container ls`. Therefore, I don't think this is the same question. I'm asking for a one-line script to do all these steps, not a manual series of steps. — Daniel Kaplan, Sep 06 '19 at 22:46

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 06 '19 at 22:55

You should provide a container name so that you can kill it by name. You'll also have to use --rm so you can restart it easily next time:

Terminal 1:

docker run -it --rm --name killMe alpine:latest /bin/sh

Terminal 2:

docker container ls
> CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
> 0113b3fea7dd        alpine:latest       "/bin/sh"           19 seconds ago      Up 18 seconds                           killMe

docker kill killMe
# the container in my first terminal is now stopped
docker run -it --rm --name killMe alpine:latest /bin/sh
# it started again

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 06 '19 at 22:55

I came up with this:

docker kill $(docker container ls | tail -1 | awk '$0 ~ /mine/ {print $NF}')

Let's start with the $(...) first. It says, list the containers, cut off the header, print the last column of any line that has mine in it (the name of my container tag). The last column is the name of the container.

I take this result and pass it into docker kill <result>. This probably wouldn't work if there were multiple running containers with mine in it, but since I can't have two running at the same time, I'm okay with this limitation.

How do I write a script that kills a docker container?

2 Answers2