Docker volumes are used to store persistent data outside your containers. They allow config files, databases, and caches used by your application to outlive individual container instances.
Volumes can be mounted when you start containers with the docker run command’s -v flag. This can either reference a named volume or bind mount a host directory into the container’s filesystem.
It’s also possible to define volumes at image build time by using the VOLUME instruction in your Dockerfiles. This mechanism guarantees that containers started from the image will have persistent storage available. In this article you’ll learn how to use this instruction and the use cases where it makes sense.
Defining Volumes In Dockerfiles
The Dockerfile VOLUME instruction creates a volume mount point at a specified container path. A volume will be mounted from your Docker host’s filesystem each time a container starts.
The Dockerfile in the following example defines a volume at the /opt/app/data container path. New containers will automatically mount a volume to the directory.
FROM ubuntu:22.04 VOLUME /opt/app/data
Build your image so you can test the volume mount:
$ docker build -t volumes-test:latest .
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