Pull a file from a Docker container?

Question

I can see that it's possible to insert a file into a Docker container via insert:

docker insert IMAGE URL PATH

Is there a way to fetch the contents of a file in a Docker container and save them somewhere on the host operating system? I'd like to extract the value of a configuration file and store it on my host operating system.

Two things:

docker insert worked on IMAGE files, not containers.

it was deprecated in 0.10.0 and no longer exists. — Sean Summers, Dec 19 '14 at 16:28
See: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/331645/extract-file-from-docker-image — Falko Menge, Aug 08 '17 at 15:00

score 37 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 11 '20 at 12:04

Depends on which version of the docker tool you're using:

The current version has an ordinary 'cp' command, according to cp doc v0.6.3:

Usage: docker cp CONTAINER:PATH HOSTPATH
Copy files/folders from the containers filesystem to the host
path. Paths are relative to the root of the filesystem.
For older version, you may consider to use 'export' as from export doc v0.5.3:

Usage: docker export CONTAINER
Export the contents of a filesystem as a tar archive

(There may also be other options, based on capabilities of your container.)

Pull a file from a Docker container?

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