1podman-cp(1)() podman-cp(1)()
2
6 podman-cp - Copy files/folders between a container and the local
7 filesystem
8
11 podman cp [options] [container:]src_path [container:]dest_path
12 podman container cp [options] [container:]src_path [con‐
15 tainer:]dest_path
16
19 Copies the contents of src_path to the dest_path. You can copy from the
20 container's filesystem to the local machine or the reverse, from the
21 local filesystem to the container. If - is specified for either the
22 SRC_PATH or DEST_PATH, you can also stream a tar archive from STDIN or
23 to STDOUT.
24 The CONTAINER can be a running or stopped container. The src_path or
27 dest_path can be a file or directory.
28 The podman cp command assumes container paths are relative to the con‐
31 tainer's / (root) directory.
32 This means supplying the initial forward slash is optional;
35 The command sees compassionate_darwin:/tmp/foo/myfile.txt and compas‐
38 sionate_darwin:tmp/foo/myfile.txt as identical.
39 Local machine paths can be an absolute or relative value. The command
42 interprets a local machine's relative paths as relative to the current
43 working directory where podman cp is run.
44 Assuming a path separator of /, a first argument of src_path and second
47 argument of dest_path, the behavior is as follows:
48 src_path specifies a file
51 - dest_path does not exist - the file is saved to a file created
52 at dest_path
53 - dest_path does not exist and ends with / - Error condition:
54 the destination directory must exist.
55 - dest_path exists and is a file - the destination is overwrit‐
56 ten with the source file's contents
57 - dest_path exists and is a directory - the file is copied into
58 this directory using the basename from src_path
59 src_path specifies a directory
62 - dest_path does not exist - dest_path is created as a directory
63 and the contents of the source directory are copied into this directory
64 - dest_path exists and is a file - Error condition: cannot copy
65 a directory to a file
66 - dest_path exists and is a directory - src_path ends with /
67 - the source directory is copied into this directory -
68 src_path ends with /. (that is: slash followed by dot) - the
69 content of the source directory is copied into this directory
70 The command requires src_path and dest_path to exist according to the
73 above rules.
74 If src_path is local and is a symbolic link, the symbolic target, is
77 copied by default.
78 A colon (:) is used as a delimiter between CONTAINER and its path.
81 You can also use : when specifying paths to a src_path or dest_path on
84 a local machine, for example, file:name.txt.
85 If you use a : in a local machine path, you must be explicit with a
88 relative or absolute path, for example: /path/to/file:name.txt or
89 ./file:name.txt
90
93 --extract
94 Extract the tar file into the destination directory. If the destination
97 directory is not provided, extract the tar file into the root direc‐
98 tory.
99 --pause
102 Pause the container while copying into it to avoid potential security
105 issues around symlinks. Defaults to true. On rootless containers with
106 cgroups V1, defaults to false.
107
110 Podman has much stronger capabilities than just podman cp to achieve
111 copy files between host and container.
112 Using standard podman-mount and podman-umount takes advantage of the
115 entire linux tool chain, rather then just cp.
116 If a user wants to copy contents out of a container or into a con‐
119 tainer, they can execute a few simple commands.
120 You can copy from the container's file system to the local machine or
123 the reverse, from the local filesystem to the container.
124 If you want to copy the /etc/foobar directory out of a container and
127 onto /tmp on the host, you could execute the following commands:
128 mnt=$(podman mount CONTAINERID)
131 cp -R ${mnt}/etc/foobar /tmp
132 podman umount CONTAINERID
133 If you want to untar a tar ball into a container, you can execute these
137 commands:
138 mnt=$(podman mount CONTAINERID)
141 tar xf content.tgz -C ${mnt}
142 podman umount CONTAINERID
143 One last example, if you want to install a package into a container
147 that does not have dnf installed, you could execute something like:
148 mnt=$(podman mount CONTAINERID)
151 dnf install --installroot=${mnt} httpd
152 chroot ${mnt} rm -rf /var/log/dnf /var/cache/dnf
153 podman umount CONTAINERID
154 This shows that using podman mount and podman umount you can use all of
158 the standard linux tools for moving files into and out of containers,
159 not just the cp command.
160
163 podman cp /myapp/app.conf containerID:/myapp/app.conf
164 podman cp /home/myuser/myfiles.tar containerID:/tmp
167 podman cp containerID:/myapp/ /myapp/
170 podman cp containerID:/home/myuser/. /home/myuser/
173 podman cp --extract /home/myuser/myfiles.tar.gz containerID:/myfiles
176 podman cp - containerID:/myfiles.tar.gz < myfiles.tar.gz
179
182 podman(1), podman-mount(1), podman-umount(1)
183 podman-cp(1)()