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Usage overview
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< h1 > Usage overview< / h1 >
< p > Watchtower is itself packaged as a Docker container so installation is as simple as pulling the < code > containrrr/watchtower< / code > image. If you are using ARM based architecture, pull the appropriate < code > containrrr/watchtower:armhf-< tag> < / code > image from the < a href = "https://hub.docker.com/r/containrrr/watchtower/tags/" > containrrr Docker Hub< / a > .< / p >
< p > Since the watchtower code needs to interact with the Docker API in order to monitor the running containers, you need to mount < em > /var/run/docker.sock< / em > into the container with the < code > -v< / code > flag when you run it.< / p >
< p > Run the < code > watchtower< / code > container with the following command:< / p >
< pre > < code class = "bash" > docker run -d \
--name watchtower \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
containrrr/watchtower
< / code > < / pre >
< p > If pulling images from private Docker registries, supply registry authentication credentials with the environment variables < code > REPO_USER< / code > and < code > REPO_PASS< / code >
or by mounting the host's docker config file into the container (at the root of the container filesystem < code > /< / code > ).< / p >
< p > Passing environment variables:< / p >
< pre > < code class = "bash" > docker run -d \
--name watchtower \
-e REPO_USER=username \
-e REPO_PASS=password \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
containrrr/watchtower container_to_watch --debug
< / code > < / pre >
< p > Also check out < a href = "https://stackoverflow.com/a/30494145/7872793" > this Stack Overflow answer< / a > for more options on how to pass environment variables.< / p >
< p > Mounting the host's docker config file:< / p >
< pre > < code class = "bash" > docker run -d \
--name watchtower \
-v /home/< user> /.docker/config.json:/config.json \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
containrrr/watchtower container_to_watch --debug
< / code > < / pre >
< p > If you mount the config file as described above, be sure to also prepend the URL for the registry when starting up your watched image (you can omit the https://). Here is a complete docker-compose.yml file that starts up a docker container from a private repo at Docker Hub and monitors it with watchtower. Note the command argument changing the interval to 30s rather than the default 5 minutes.< / p >
< pre > < code class = "json" > version: " 3"
services:
cavo:
image: index.docker.io/< org> /< image> :< tag>
ports:
- " 443:3443"
- " 80:3080"
watchtower:
image: containrrr/watchtower
volumes:
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
- /root/.docker/config.json:/config.json
command: --interval 30
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