Change working directory command in Docker
In Docker, we cannot run terminal commands seamlessly if we do not create and start a container and execute in the container's shell. An example of these commands is changing the working directory.
Changing the working directory is essential if we need to install components in a specific directory. This article will discuss how to change the working directory in Docker.
Changing the working directory in Docker
The following commands we will deal with are not the main commands, but the entries we will use when preparing the Dockerfile. If we remember, we can use the Dockerfile to automatically create the container when we run the docker build command.
In the next section, we'll discuss two ways to change the working directory via a Dockerfile.
Using the RUN Command
We can run a terminal script using the RUN command. Then, in our Dockerfile, we can insert an entry like the following to change our working directory.
RUN cd /dev
We can change the working directory using the command before running other commands cd. However, we do not need to add new RUN entries to the Dockerfile to run multiple commands.
We can use and append various commands with just one RUN line.
Sample code:
RUN cd /dev && git clone sample.git && pip install -r requirements.txt
We can run multiple commands using the AND ( && ) operator. For example, the following command will run only if the previous command following it succeeds.
In this case, if the git clone command fails, our pip installcommand will not execute. However, there is a more direct approach if we change the working directory inside the container.
Using the WORKDIR Command
As with the RUN command, we can add a WORKDIR command to our Dockerfile to change the working directory once the container is up and running.
WORKDIR "/dev"
When writing build files for Docker, the WORKDIR command is considered as the best practice for Dockerfile. This happens because the above command is easier to read and distinguish the commands executed on the container.
WORKDIR "/dev"
RUN git clone sample.git && pip install -r requirements.txt
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