Working in Your Containers¶

When using Docker, we often have to run commands inside the Docker containers. For example, you can run the same Drush commands you would run in a non-Docker environment, but you must run those commands inside the Drupal container.

Running Commands in the Containers¶

If you want to work inside a container, you can use Docker Compose to run bash from inside the container. You can be dropped into a bash shell inside the Drupal container by running

docker compose exec -it drupal with-contenv bash

Or you can run your command from the host machine by running

docker compose exec drupal YOUR COMMAND

For example, if you want to perform a Drush cache rebuild you could run

docker compose exec drupal drush cr

If your commands rely on bash expression like wildcard expandsions or referencing variables defined inside the container you'll need to wrap you command in bash -lc ""

docker compose exec drupal bash -lc "ls **/*.php"

Container Names

The container name drupal is the 'service' name as set in your docker-compose.yml.

You can also access other containers in this way, by replacing drupal with their service name. For example, mariadb, solr, fcrepo, etc.

For more information, see the documentation on docker compose exec

Container Variables¶

In some of the commands throughout the ISLE Site Template documentation you will see references to variables like ${DRUPAL_DEFAULT_SITE_URL}. These are variables that are provided in the containers by the s6-overlay in Islandora Buildkit.

If you want to see their values, you can run

docker compose exec drupal echo ${DRUPAL_DEFAULT_SITE_URL}'

with-contenv

Adding with-contenv to your commands gives you access to the s6-overlay environment variables. If you don't need to use these variables, the commands above can be simplified to

docker compose exec drupal bash

and

docker compose exec -T drupal bash -lc 'YOUR COMMAND'

Helpful Commands¶

Checking logs¶

You can read logs for a container with:

docker compose logs service_name

For example, to read nginx logs for Drupal, use docker compose logs drupal.

If you don't know what you're looking for exactly, you can turn on the fire hose and look through all logs by dropping the service name and simply using:

docker compose logs

Reindex Solr¶

You can reindex Solr through the Drupal admin page, or via drush commands by queuing for reindex:

docker compose exec drupal drush search-api-reindex

then triggering the reindex:

docker compose exec drupal drush search-api-index

Reindex Fedora¶

Note

This requires the Views Bulk Operations module

You can reindex all of your Drupal data into Fedora, by running the following commands:

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec non_fedora_files emit_file_event  \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-fcrepo-file-external&event=Update"

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec all_taxonomy_terms emit_term_event \ 
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-fcrepo-content&event=Update"

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec content emit_node_event \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-fcrepo-content&event=Update"

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec media emit_media_event \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-fcrepo-media&event=Update"

Reindex Blazegraph¶

Note

This requires the Views Bulk Operations module

You can reindex all of your Drupal data into Blazegraph, by running the following commands:

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec all_taxonomy_terms emit_term_event \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-triplestore-index&event=Update"

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec content emit_node_event \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-triplestore-index&event=Update"

docker compose exec drupal \
  drush vbo-exec media emit_media_event \
    --configuration="queue=islandora-indexing-triplestore-index&event=Update"

Last update: January 14, 2026