I know when you create a container the Docker engine adds a thin writable layer on top of the image layers. And all filesystem changes are recorded in that writable layer.
I know I can use the docker diff command to show the changes made in a container's filesystem compared to the base image.
But surprisingly, I cannot see where data are saved in the following use case involving the official MongoDB image:
sh$ sudo docker run -d --name mongo mongo:3.6.10
sh$ sudo docker exec -i mongo mongo << EOF
> db.test.insert({foo:"bar"})
> EOF
MongoDB shell version v3.6.10
MongoDB server version: 3.6.10
WriteResult({ "nInserted" : 1 })
bye
sh$ sudo docker stop mongo
sh$ sudo docker diff mongo
C /root
A /root/.dbshell
C /tmp
/tmp is empty. And /root/.dbshell is just the history file for the mongo client. But I can't see any trace of the data files modified by the Mongo DB server. However, data were definitely stored:
sh$ sudo docker start mongo
sh$ sudo docker exec -i mongo mongo << EOF
> db.test.find()
> EOF
MongoDB shell version v3.6.10
MongoDB server version: 3.6.10
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5c750d4cef8f9635fe459f06"), "foo" : "bar" }
bye
And I can find the data when I manually dump the files:
sh$ sudo docker exec mongo bash -c 'tar c /data/db/collection*' | hexdump -C | grep foo
tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
0000e840 02 66 6f 6f 00 04 00 00 00 62 61 72 00 00 00 00 |.foo.....bar....|
Why can't I find the data files modified by the MongoDB server using docker diff? Did I make some wrong assumption somewhere? Or did I misunderstood something regarding the way docker diff works?
