Docker containers: lifecycle states and management

A container can be in one of these states:

  - created
  - restarting
  - running
  - paused
  - exited

Created

A container is created after docker create initializes it, but before it has started.

Exited

Exited usually means stopped: no active processes are running inside. (A created container also has no running processes, but it has never started.) A container exists while its main process exists. Restart a stopped container with docker start.

Related topics

• Overview — how the engine starts a container
• Exposing containers — publish ports to the host
• Connecting containers — link containers on a network