In this guide, we will see how to restart all the containers with an example.

Why Restart Containers?

There are several reasons why you might need to restart a Docker container:

Application Updates: If you've just updated the application running inside a container, a restart can help apply those changes.

Recovery: If containers face issues, a simple restart often brings them back to normal operation.

Configuration Updates: Post configuration changes, a restart ensures containers run with the latest settings.

Command to Restart Containers

The primary command to restart a container is as straightforward as:

docker restart [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

To restart a single container, simply specify its name or ID:

docker restart my_container_name

docker restart my_container_id

You can list down multiple container names or IDs:

docker restart my_container_1 my_container_2 my_container_3

For our example, we'll use a simple Node.js application, but the process applies to any application you'd want to dockerize.

FROM node:14
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
EXPOSE 8080
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

With our Dockerfile ready, it's time to create an image:

docker build -t my-node-app:latest .

With our image built, let's start a container:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 my-node-app:latest

After doing some changes in the node app in a container, you can restart the container by using the following command:

docker restart $(docker ps -a -q)

Here, docker ps -a -q lists all containers, and docker restart ensures they're all restarted.

In this guide, we have seen how to restart the Docker containers with examples.