docker logs

The command is strongly associated with the Docker Container Lifecycle.

The docker logs command allows you to read the output from STDOUT and STDERR of a a container as a batch. You can add a -f or --follow flag to stream the output from the container in real time.

docker logs [options] container_id

Example

The following example uses docker logs to retrieve the output of the container created with hello-world image.

docker create hello-world
# 319297ab159e46b41a1cd580e2c02f05e40ca43f76b3fb679e478d7a6ae16c57
 
docker start 319297ab159e46b41a1cd580e2c02f05e40ca43f76b3fb679e478d7a6ae16c57
# 319297ab159e46b41a1cd580e2c02f05e40ca43f76b3fb679e478d7a6ae16c57
 
docker logs 319297ab159e46b41a1cd580e2c02f05e40ca43f76b3fb679e478d7a6ae16c57
# Hello from Docker!
# This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

References

• Docker and Kubernetes: The Complete Guide
• docker container logs | Docker Docs