Run once without stopping/starting the watchtower container?

[janreinhardt]

Hi guys,
sometimes I feel the need to let Watchtower update everything in between my scheduled intervals. Like a just now situation.
I know about the --run-once parameter, but I dont want to stop / start Watchtower. Is there an easy way to make the container do this while running, as in docker exec -it watchtower XYZ from the console?

Thanks!

[nicholas-fedor]

There are two main methods of accomplishing this.

1. Directly running Docker CLI exec commands against the running Watchtower container (see below).
2. Configuring and sending HTTP requests against Watchtower's HTTP API (documentation).

Docker CLI Method

To perform a standard, single update run:

docker exec -it <watchtower container name> /watchtower --run-once

For example:

root@it-tools:~/Docker# docker exec -it watchtower /watchtower --run-once
INFO[0001] Watchtower v1.14.1-b63f1f08 using Docker API v1.51 
INFO[0001] Using notifications: gotify                  
WARN[0001] Run once mode: Disregarding update on start  
INFO[0005] Found new image                               container=dozzle-agent image="harbor.papago.casa/docker/amir20/dozzle:latest" new_id=f7f0146bcabe
INFO[0008] Stopping container                            container=dozzle-agent id=21876fb7f5b5 signal=SIGTERM timeout=30s
INFO[0008] Started new container                         container=dozzle-agent id=21876fb7f5b5 new_id=19d62da23147
INFO[0008] Removing image                                image_id=150da7ba6434 image_name="harbor.papago.casa/docker/amir20/dozzle:latest" notify=yes
INFO[0008] Update session completed                      failed=0 notify=no scanned=6 updated=1

If you want to just specify a single container to update:

docker exec -it <watchtower container name> /watchtower --run-once <target container name>

For example:

root@it-tools:~/Docker# docker exec -it watchtower /watchtower --run-once it-tools
INFO[0001] Watchtower v1.14.1-b63f1f08 using Docker API v1.51 
INFO[0001] Using notifications: gotify                  
WARN[0001] Run once mode: Disregarding update on start  
INFO[0001] Update session completed                      failed=0 notify=no scanned=1 updated=0

Docker CLI Usage:

Usage:  docker exec [OPTIONS] CONTAINER COMMAND [ARG...]

Execute a command in a running container

Aliases:
  docker container exec, docker exec

Options:
  -d, --detach               Detached mode: run command in the background
      --detach-keys string   Override the key sequence for detaching a container
  -e, --env list             Set environment variables
      --env-file list        Read in a file of environment variables
  -i, --interactive          Keep STDIN open even if not attached
      --privileged           Give extended privileges to the command
  -t, --tty                  Allocate a pseudo-TTY
  -u, --user string          Username or UID (format: "<name|uid>[:<group|gid>]")
  -w, --workdir string       Working directory inside the container

[janreinhardt]

thanks, thats just what I needed 👍🏻