Bind mounts and the "df -h", "mount -t ext4" outputs inside containers

General
1

I am running a Ubuntu container on Ubuntu VM. I notice when I login to it without any bind mount I see, apart from overlays, /dev/sda1 ( root OR /) from host mounted as /etc/hosts file.

With bind mount I do see the path mapped to a dir inside container but still mount -t ext4 continues to show /dev/sda1.

  • My questions

  1. Why do I see root ("/") OR /dev/sda1 of host inside a container against /etc/hosts or /etc/resolve.conf or /etc/hostname ?

  2. If I bind mount a host dir path inside a container, I see /dev/sda1 now under the “bind mount” path inside container, while I still see other mounts with mount -t ext4
    Its confusing me, Why Is it this way?

  3. Am I limited by the space available on the host, while using the bind mount path inside the container?

Any links to documents/code is welcome along with answers.

Appreciate your time and help.
Thanks

Logs.

- Setup 
- Docker build -, running on Ubuntu 19.04 VM inside Virtulbox, running on Windows 10.
-Docker version - 18.09.5

- When I start a new docker container, I see following o/p for df -h

pkondekar@DevVM:~$ docker run -it --rm   ubuntu

root@8d8830a07438:/# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
overlay          20G   11G  8.1G  57% /
tmpfs            64M     0   64M   0% /dev
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup

/dev/sda1        20G   11G  8.1G  57% /etc/hosts

shm              64M     0   64M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/asound
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/acpi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/scsi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/firmware


- mount -t overlays
 root@8d8830a07438:/# mount -t overlay
 overlay on / type overlay (rw,relatime,lowerdir=/var/lib/docker/overlay2/l/QBA5RAPJND6FWJ5J2NPPB54JEJ:/var/lib/docker/overlay2/l/VX6A55NBSFSMU4I34JOBXXZFWC:/var/lib/docker/overlay2/l/6EIHPYRMBKOEBLGLZECSODUTY7:/var/lib/docker/overlay2/l/G4DAUQTICPYPRW6SXYTYPWV4FG:/var/lib/docker/overlay2/l/4AE4GUZTLOKJXWMXEP24YTGXU2,upperdir=/var/lib/docker/overlay2/c5d0361e5d90def88f2371ad43be2f629db9ef42caf24603520e54b251166d8e/diff,workdir=/var/lib/docker/overlay2/c5d0361e5d90def88f2371ad43be2f629db9ef42caf24603520e54b251166d8e/work,xino=off)
root@8d8830a07438:/# 

- mount -t ext4 
 root@8d8830a07438:/# mount -t ext4
/dev/sda1 on /etc/resolv.conf type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /etc/hostname type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /etc/hosts type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
root@8d8830a07438:/ 

- No bind mounts
pkondekar@DevVM:~$ docker inspect -f "{{ .Mounts }}" 8d88
[]
pkondekar@DevVM:~$

pkondekar@DevVM:~$ docker run -it --rm   -v /var:/tmp ubuntu
root@b81ad5fb5523:/# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
overlay          20G   11G  8.1G  57% /
tmpfs            64M     0   64M   0% /dev
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1        20G   11G  8.1G  57% /tmp
shm              64M     0   64M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/asound
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/acpi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/scsi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/firmware
root@b81ad5fb5523:/# 


root@b81ad5fb5523:/# mount -t ext4
/dev/sda1 on /tmp type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /etc/resolv.conf type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /etc/hostname type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /etc/hosts type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
root@b81ad5fb5523:/#
2

Not exactly sure what you are trying to do but if you are trying to connect a part of the filesystem in the container to the host you can use docker-compose and volumes. Generally, docker-compose is a lot easier to use than bare docker and it uses a lot of similar syntaxes.

3 
/dev/sda1        20G   11G  8.1G  57% /etc/hosts

So why do we see the above in “df -h” cmd output inside docker container?

4

If you post how you created the container I may be able to answer you.

5

Re-pasting the logs below,

~$ docker run -it --rm   ubuntu

root@8d8830a07438:/# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
overlay          20G   11G  8.1G  57% /
tmpfs            64M     0   64M   0% /dev
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1        20G   11G  8.1G  57% /etc/hosts
shm              64M     0   64M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/asound
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/acpi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /proc/scsi
tmpfs           996M     0  996M   0% /sys/firmware
6

This explains it well -https://docs.docker.com/v17.09/engine/userguide/networking/default_network/configure-dns/

Thanks,
Appreciate your time.