inspection

`docker inspect`

Returns low-level JSON metadata about Docker objects — containers, images, networks, volumes, and more. Supports Go template formatting for extracting specific fields.

Syntax

docker inspect [OPTIONS] NAME|ID [NAME|ID...]

Common flags

Flag	Purpose
-f, --format	Format output with a Go template
--type	Restrict to a specific object type (container, image, network, etc.)
-s, --size	Include size information for containers

Examples

docker inspect web

Full JSON metadata for the container

docker inspect -f '{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}' web

Extract just the container IP

docker inspect --type image nginx:alpine

Force lookup as an image when names collide

docker inspect -f '{{range .Mounts}}{{.Source}}->{{.Destination}}{{println}}{{end}}' db

List mount sources and destinations

Gotcha

Container and image can share the same name — use --type to disambiguate. Field paths are case-sensitive and change between object types; check the JSON structure first before writing a template.

Related commands

docker ps

Lists containers along with their status, ports, and identifiers. By default it shows only running containers unless -a is passed.

docker images

Lists images stored in the local image store with their repository, tag, ID, and size. Alias for docker image ls.

docker network

Manages Docker networks — create, inspect, connect, disconnect, and remove user-defined bridges, overlays, or macvlan networks. Enables container-to-container DNS resolution by name.

docker volume

Manages persistent named volumes for containers — create, list, inspect, remove, and prune. Named volumes survive container removal and are the recommended storage mechanism over bind mounts for stateful data.

docker top

Displays the running processes inside a container, similar to running ps on the host restricted to that container's PID namespace. Accepts standard ps flags after the container name.

← All Docker commands · Docker vs Kubernetes · Docker vs VMs