James's Knowledge Graph

Error response from daemon: invalid bind mount spec

The call to docker run using Git Bash on Windows was recently frustrating me when I tried to specify a volume using -v:

$ docker run -it -v /c/Users/james/Code/my-application:/app james/test-container sh
C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\Resources\bin\docker.exe: Error response from daemon: invalid bind mount spec "/C/Users/james/Code/my-application;C:\\Program Files\\Git\\app": invalid volume specification: '/C/Users/james/Code/my-app;C:\Program Files\Git\app': invalid mount config for type "bind": invalid mount path: '\Program Files\Git\app' mount path must be absolute.
See 'C:\Program Files\Docker\Docker\Resources\bin\docker.exe run --help'.

I tried multiple formats for the path, but ultimately discovered that it is necessary to prefix the path with an extra slash (/), like so:

docker run -it -v //c/Users/james/Code/my-application:/app james/test-container sh

This is necessary when using pwd as well, for example:

docker run -it -v /$(pwd):/app james/test-container sh

The syntax to mount a docker volume to the current parent directory turned out to be quite interesting as well:

docker run -it -v /$(pwd)/..:/app james/test-container sh

Broader Topics Related to Docker: Fix Invalid Bind Mount Spec in Git Bash

Git Bash

Git Bash

A Bash emulator and terminal for Windows

Docker

Docker

A set of tools to build and run containers

Docker: Fix Invalid Bind Mount Spec in Git Bash Knowledge Graph