watchtower/docs/index.md

Watchtower

A container-based solution for automating Docker container base image updates.

Quick Start

With watchtower you can update the running version of your containerized app simply by pushing a new image to the Docker Hub or your own image registry. Watchtower will pull down your new image, gracefully shut down your existing container and restart it with the same options that were used when it was deployed initially. Run the watchtower container with the following command:

=== "docker run"

```bash
$ docker run -d \
--name watchtower \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
containrrr/watchtower
```

=== "docker-compose.yml"

```yaml
version: "3"
services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
```

Quick note: if your registry uses a custom TLS certificate, mount the CA bundle and enable startup validation so Watchtower fails fast on misconfiguration:

docker run --detach \
  --name watchtower \
  --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  --volume /etc/ssl/private-certs:/certs \
  containrrr/watchtower \
  --registry-ca /certs/my-registry-ca.pem \
  --registry-ca-validate=true

Prefer this over --insecure-registry for production.