Copy Host Files to Docker volume

If you want to copy files from your host to a Docker volume, you can do this using a temporary helper container. This is a common approach that is used to copy files to Docker volumes. In this tutorial, you will learn how to copy files from your host to a Docker volume using a temporary helper container.

Step 1: Create a Docker Volume

First, you need to create a Docker volume. You can do this using the docker volume create command. For example:

docker volume create my_volume

Step 2: Run a helper Container

Next, run a temporary helper container and mount the volume to it. You can use the docker run command to do this. For example:

docker run --rm -v my_volume:/volume  --name helper alpine /dev/null

In this command :

--rm tells Docker to remove the container after it stopes.

-v my_volume:/volume mounts the Docker volume to the /volume directory inside the container.

--name helper gives the container a name. You can use any name you prefer.

alpine is the Docker image used to run the container. You can replace this with any image you prefer. Alpine is a lightweight Linux distribution that is commonly used for Docker containers.

/dev/null is the command to run inside the container. This command does nothing just keep the container running until we stop, which is what we want for a temporary container.

Step 3: Copy the Content

Now, you can copy the content from the host directory to the Docker volume. You can use the cp command to do this. For example:

docker cp  ./host_directory/. helper:/path/inside/container

Step 4: Stop the container

Finally, stop the container using the docker stop command. For example:

docker stop helper