Unable to share/mount Volume with Docker Toolbox on Windows 10

Question

I am trying to setup my project with docker. I am using Docker Toolbox on Windows 10 Home. I am very new to docker. To my understanding I have to copy my files to new container and add a volume so that I can persist changes made by gulp.

Here is my folder structure

-- src
|- dist
|- node-modules
|- gulpfile.js
|- package.json
|- Dockerfile

The Dockerfile code

FROM node:8.9.4-alpine
RUN npm install -g gulp
CMD [ "ls", 'source' ]

I tried many solutions for *docker run -v *

e.g

docker run -v /$(pwd):/source <container image>
docker run -v //c/Users/PcUser/Desktop/proj:/source <container image>
docker run -v //c/Users/PcUser/Desktop/proj:/source <container image>
docker run -v //d/proj:/source <container image>
docker run -v /d/proj:/source <container image>

* But No luck *

Can anyone describe how would you set it up for yourself with the same structure. And why am I not able to mount my host folder.

P.S: If I use two containers one for compiling my code with gulp and one with nginx to serve the content of dist folder. How will I do that.

Answer 1

Thanks for the question, possible more simple configuration via a VirtualBox graphical dialogue, worked for me, without the use of command line, albeit maybe not necessarily more versatile:

configuring the sharing folder inside VirtualBox shared folders configuration dialogue, and then calling mount like this

docker run --volume //d/docker/nginx:/etc/nginx

I will be binding the /etc/nginx directory in my container to D:\Program Files\Docker Toolbox\nginx

source: https://medium.com/@Charles_Stover/fixing-volumes-in-docker-toolbox-4ad5ace0e572#fromHistory#fromHistory

Answer 2

@sxm1972 Thank you for your effort and help.

You are probably using Windows Pro or a server edition. I am using Windows 10 Home edition

Here is how I solved it, so other people using same setup can solve their issue.

There may be a better way to solve this, please comment if there is an efficient way.

So...

First, the question... Why I don't see my shared volume from PC in my container.

Ans: If we use docker's Boot2Docker with VirtualBox (which I am) then whenever a volume is mounted it refers to a folder inside the Boot2Docker VM

Image: Result of -v with docker in VirtualBox Boot2Docker

So with this if we try to use $ ls it will show an empty folder which in my case it did.

So we have to actually mount the folder to Boot2Docker VM if we want to share our files from Windows environment to Container.

Image: Resulting Mounts Window <-> Boot2Docker <-> Container

To achieve this we have to manually mount the folder to VM with the following command

vboxmanage sharedfolder add default --name "<folder_name_on_vm>" --hostpath "<path_to_folder_on_windows>" --automount

IF YOU GET ERROR RUNNING THE COMMAND, SAYING vboxmanager NOT FOUND ADD VIRTUAL BOX FOLDER PATH TO YOUR SYSTEM PATH. FOR ME IT WAS C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox

After running the command, you'll see <folder_name_on_vm> on root. You can check it by docker-machine ssh default and then ls /. After confirming that the folder <folder_name_on_vm> exist, you can use it as volume to your container.

docker run -it -v /<folder_name_on_vm>:/source <container> sh

Hope this helps...!

P.S If you are feeling lazy and don't wan't to mount a folder, you can place your project inside your C:/Users folder as it is mounted by default on the VM as show in the image.

Answer 3

The problem is because the base-image you use runs the node REPL as its ENTRYPOINT. If you run the image as docker run -it node:8.9.4-alpine you will see a node prompt and it will not run the npm command like you want.

The way I worked around the problem is to create your own base image using the following Dockerfile:

FROM node:8.9.4-alpine
CMD ["sh"]

Build it as follows: docker built -t mynodealpine .

Then build your image using this modified Dockerfile:

FROM mynodealpine
RUN npm install -g gulp
CMD [ "/bin/sh", "-c", "ls  source" ]

For the problem regarding mounting of volumes, since you are using Docker for Windows, you need to go into Settings (click on the icon in the system tray) and then go and enable Shared Drives.

Here is the output I was able to get:

PS C:\users\smallya\testnode> dir


    Directory: C:\users\smallya\testnode


Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                -------------         ------ ----
d-----        2/18/2018  11:11 AM                dist
d-----        2/18/2018  11:11 AM                node_modules
-a----        2/18/2018  11:13 AM             77 Dockerfile
-a----        2/18/2018  11:12 AM             26 gulpfile.js
-a----        2/18/2018  11:12 AM             50 package.json


PS C:\users\smallya\testnode> docker run -it -v c:/users/smallya/testnode:/source mynodealpinenew
Dockerfile    dist          gulpfile.js   node_modules  package.json
PS C:\users\smallya\testnode>