Docker container as VM

General
1

Hello all,

I am new with docker and I would like to know if it is possible to use a container as VM.

I have this compose:

version: “3”
services:
debian:
image: debian:
container_name: TEST
restart: unless-stopped

And it restarts automatically every 1 or 2 seconds. I have done a research and all answers are the same “Docker is used to run a task and then stop the container” and if you want to keep it alive you must add something like “tty: true” in the compose (it works) and it will keep alive. Is not correct to use the containers as ‘virtual machines’ ?

But I can not understand it because I used some Docker services like Nginx or MySQL and those containers did not restart automatically like the Debian or Alpine, they are alive 24/7 and the docker-compose does not have this “tty: true”… Can someone let me know why?

Regards,

2

Containers are not VMs. They are used to execute a process in a restricted environment.

When you run a Debian container without any additional params, it will just execute nothing, then terminate.

You can use a simple sleep as command to keep it up for a certain time, or bash as command (with tty) which will wait forever.

docker run -it debian bash