How to Export and Import Docker Containers

In our previous tutorials you have learned about installation of Docker engine on CentOS/RHEL and Ubuntu operating system and pulled images from Docker hub. After that created containers with images. This tutorial will help you to export and import Docker containers and move them between hosts.

List Containers

Fist list all containers on your system using below command. Using ps -a will list all containers (running and stopped) from your system.

root@tecadmin:~# docker ps -a

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE    COMMAND      CREATED       STATUS      PORTS  NAMES
f2582758af13   ubuntu   "/bin/bash"  2 hours ago   Up 2 hours         ubuntu-web
2b199b9976c4   centos   "/bin/bash"  3 days ago    Up 3 hours         centos-mysql

Export Container

Finally use the following command to export container named ubuntu-web (container id: f2582758af13) and make a zipped archive named ubuntu-web.tar.gz. Remember that export is used for making backup of docker containers (not images) in image format.

# docker export ubuntu-web | gzip > ubuntu-web.tar.gz

Import Container

After exporting docker container on your system move it to remote server using scp or ftp. After that use below command on remote server to import Docker container on remote server with name ubuntu-web.

# zcat ubuntu-web.gz | docker import - ubuntu-web

The above command will create a docker image on your system. You can now launch a container from this image using below command.

# docker run -i -t ubuntu-web /bin/bash