The interaction of CMD and ENTRYPOINT

The CMD and ENTRYPOINT instructions in a Dockerfile interact with each other in an interesting way.

Consider this simple dockerfile:

from alpine:latest

cmd echo A

When I run docker run -it $(docker build -q .) The out put I get is A, like you'd expect.

With an additional entrypoint instruction:

from alpine:latest

entrypoint echo B
cmd echo A

I get just B no A.

Each of these commands are using the shell form of the instruction. What if I use the exec form?

from alpine:latest

entrypoint ["echo", "B"]
cmd ["echo", "A"]

Then! Surprisingly, I get B echo A.

When using the exec form cmd provides default arguments to entrypoint

You can override those default arguments by providing an argument to docker run:

docker run -it $(docker build -q .) C
B C

Tweet