Enter in a Docker container already running with a new TTY

Question

My container is running the Apache service in the foreground. I need to access the container from another shell in order to "poke around" inside it and examine the files. At the moment, I have left looking at the Apache daemon and unable to run any commands.

Is it possible to attach another tty to a running container? Possibly, I can take advantage of the fact that Docker is actually just wrapping around LXC containers? I have used sudo lxc-console -n [container-id] -t [1-4] but it appears that only one tty is made available and that is the one running the apache daemon. Perhaps there is a way to enable multiple lxc consoles during the build?

Answer 1

Here is what you can try.

For docker 1.3 and above, there is a new command docker exec. This allows you to enter a running docker container: 

docker exec -it [container-id] bash

I hope that this will work for you.