Container Actions

Overview

Drydock provides direct container management actions through both the UI and API. These actions let you control containers without leaving the drydock interface.

Available actions

Action	API endpoint	Description
Start	`POST /api/containers/:id/start`	Start a stopped container
Stop	`POST /api/containers/:id/stop`	Stop a running container
Restart	`POST /api/containers/:id/restart`	Restart a container
Update	`POST /api/containers/:id/update`	Pull new image and recreate container
Delete	`DELETE /api/containers/:id`	Remove container from drydock tracking

Feature flags

Container actions can be individually toggled with environment variables:

Env var	Required	Description	Supported values	Default value when missing
`DD_SERVER_FEATURE_CONTAINERACTIONS`	⚪	Enable start, stop, restart, and update actions	`true`, `false`	`true`
`DD_SERVER_FEATURE_DELETE`	⚪	Enable container deletion	`true`, `false`	`true`

When a feature flag is disabled, the corresponding buttons are hidden in the UI and the API endpoints return 403 Forbidden.

Update action

The update action triggers the Docker trigger for the selected container. It will:

Pull the latest image
Backup the current image
Run lifecycle hooks (if configured)
Stop and remove the current container
Create and start the new container
Monitor health (if auto-rollback is enabled)

See Lifecycle Hooks and Backup & Rollback for related configuration.

Preview

Before updating, you can preview what will change using the dry-run endpoint:

POST /api/containers/:id/preview

This returns the proposed changes without executing them.

Metrics

All container actions are tracked via Prometheus counters. See Monitoring for details.

Example — disable all actions

services:
  drydock:
    image: codeswhat/drydock
    environment:
      - DD_SERVER_FEATURE_CONTAINERACTIONS=false
      - DD_SERVER_FEATURE_DELETE=false