How to create a bidirectional link between containers?

by

Docker 1.10 addresses this very nicely by introducing advanced container networking.
(Details: https://docs.docker.com/engine/userguide/networking/dockernetworks/ )

First, create a network. The example below creates a basic “bridge” network, which works on one host only. You can check out docker’s more complete documentation to do this across hosts using an overlay network.

docker network create my-fancy-network

Docker networks in 1.10 now create a special DNS resolution inside of containers that can resolve the names in a special way. First, you can continue to use –link, but as you’ve pointed out your example doesn’t work. What I recommend is using –net-alias= in your docker run commands:

docker run -i -t --name container1 --net=my-fancy-network --net-alias=container1 ubuntu:trusty /bin/bash
docker run -i -t --name container2 --net=my-fancy-network --net-alias=container2 ubuntu:trusty /bin/bash

Note that having –name container2 is setting the container name, which also creates a DNS entry and –net-alias=container2 just creates a DNS entry on the network, so in this particular example you could omit –net-alias but I left it there in case you wanted to rename your containers and still have a DNS alias that does not match your container name.

(Details here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/userguide/networking/configure-dns/ )

And here you go:

root@4dff6c762785:/# ping container1
PING container1 (172.19.0.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from container1.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.2): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.101 ms
64 bytes from container1.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.2): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.074 ms
64 bytes from container1.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.2): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.072 ms

And from container1

root@4f16381fca06:/# ping container2
PING container2 (172.19.0.3) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from container2.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.3): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.060 ms
64 bytes from container2.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.3): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.069 ms
64 bytes from container2.my-fancy-network (172.19.0.3): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.062 ms

More Related Contents:

  1. Docker Compose wait for container X before starting Y
  2. What is the difference between docker-compose ports vs expose
  3. How to run shell script on host from docker container?
  4. Confused about Docker -t option to Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  5. How to mount a single file in a volume
  6. How to set the locale inside a Debian/Ubuntu Docker container?
  7. How to update /etc/hosts file in Docker image during “docker build”
  8. Conditional COPY/ADD in Dockerfile?
  9. docker: “build” requires 1 argument. See ‘docker build –help’
  10. Docker build “Could not resolve ‘archive.ubuntu.com'” apt-get fails to install anything
  11. What is a dangling image and what is an unused image?
  12. What is the right way to add data to an existing named volume in Docker?
  13. Externalising Spring Boot properties when deploying to Docker
  14. How can I use a variable inside a Dockerfile CMD?
  15. Docker look at the log of an exited container
  16. How to use environment variables in docker-compose?
  17. How do I set hostname in docker-compose?
  18. Keycloak Docker HTTPS required
  19. How to set image name in Dockerfile?
  20. Docker – how can I copy a file from an image to a host?
  21. Using docker-compose with CI – how to deal with exit codes and daemonized linked containers?
  22. How to get Docker containers to talk to each other while running on my local host?
  23. How do I configure docker compose to expose ports correctly?
  24. Change directory command in Docker?
  25. Dockerfile build – possible to ignore error?
  26. Docker container doesn’t expose ports when –net=host is mentioned in the docker run command
  27. How to tag docker image with docker-compose
  28. Finding the layers and layer sizes for each Docker image
  29. What’s the best way to share files from Windows to Boot2docker VM?
  30. docker – how do you disable auto-restart on a container?

Leave a Comment