Run commands in a stopped container

docker exec only works with currently running containers.

If you want to take the resulting image, and run another command, you will need to commit that and start another container.:

docker run --name mycont4 ubuntu echo one</pre>

one

$ docker commit mycont4 myimage5

015b3a3d3844b0c3638ab0e07eabd6b2ccdd1768667bc8635051488c6dcec087

$ docker run --name mycont5 myimage5 echo two

two

Since the echo example might be skewing a bit, docker exec may still work for you. For example:

$ docker run --name mycont4 ubuntu sleep 10 # let this exit

$ docker start mycont4 $ this starts sleep 10 back up in the background

mycont4

$ docker exec mycont4 ps faux

USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND

root         8  0.0  0.1  15568  2112 ?        R    08:11   0:00 ps faux

root         1  0.7  0.0   4348   648 ?        Ss   08:11   0:00 sleep 10

Since sleep doesn't exit immediately, the container is running still when you run docker exec.

Hopefully this is helpful.