Managing Docker images with tags

When you build Docker images many times, you will find it is very necessary to manage images with tags.

If you build an image without a tag, the default tag ‘latest’ is created automatically.

docker build -t company/myimage .

The complete name is company/myimage:latest

When you need to update a new version of company/myimage, you don't need to create an image company/myimage_v2. You should create an image with the same name and a new tag.

docker build -t company/myimage:v2 .

And set it latest

docker tag -f company/myimage:v2 company/myimage:latest

So your new image has two tags: v2 and latest. When you start a container based on company/myimage, company/myimage:latest will be used.

Originally published at vinceyuan.github.io on June 8, 2015.