Finding the Command or Entrypoint that Started a Container

I use Docker to run many services I don’t want to install on my computer - databases, queues, caches, etc.

But sometimes I want to know exactly how the container is started, see the script or binary inside the container that is executed.

To get this information you can get the original Docker file but that can be tricky sometimes, but there is another way.

In Docker Desktop, go to the container you are interested in, it doesn’t matter whether it is running or not, and click on its name.

This will bring you to a new screen with a set of tabs.

Click the second one, “Inspect”.

Just below where you clicked will be “Cmd”. That will jump you to the command used to start the container, if the “Cmd” field is empty, look at the “EntryPoint” field instead.

With this you can go to the “Exec” tab, and navigate to the file referenced.