Docker run -v : Unable to mount a bind volume : "invalid volume specification"

Question

I'm quite new to Docker. I'm running on Windows 10 Enterprise and am trying to containerize an existing app that runs on windows (so it's a Windows container). I don't know if this matters but the container is rather large (8 GB).

I need to share a config file (that lives on the host) with the container that the app will use when starting. I was thinking that a bind volume was simplest.

Problem: On running the image I get docker: Error response from daemon: invalid volume specification: '<source path>:<target path>'

Container was built with this command:
docker build -t my_image .

Here is the Dockerfile:

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/runtime:4.8
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
ENTRYPOINT .\application.exe ..\Resources

Here is what I've tried
docker run -it -v c:/Users/my_user:/app my_image

I've tried every combination of C:/, C:\, C:\\, /c/, //c/, \c\, \\c\, etc.

I've tried multiple combinations of /app, //app, \app, \app, C:\app, etc.

I've also tried with and without :rw appended to the end

I've tried the ```--mount``` syntax which consistently outputs: docker: Error response from daemon: invalid mount config for type "bind": invalid mount path: '/app'. (tried a bunch of variations of /app here too)

I've tried every possible combination (except the right one). Please help!

Jilly

If the provided answer helped in solving your problem, please mark the question as solved by accepting the answer. – Flanders

Answer 1

Since you are using a Windows container, your file path will change. Try the below command, from the docs Persistent Storage in Windows Containers

docker run -it -v c:\Users\my_user:c:\app my_image

Flanders

Answer 2

If you are using a powershell and trying to run docker using docker run command you can try this approach. It worked for me in windows powershell (vs code powershell)

docker run -v ${pwd}\src:/app/src -d -p 3000:3000 --name react-app-c2  react-app-image

Here react-app-c2 is container name and react-app-image is image name -v is for volume and ${pwd} is for current working directory /app/src is for the containerdirectory.

Caine