call a script automatically in container before docker stops the container - bash

Question

I want a custom bash script in the container that is called automatically before the container stops (docker stop or ctrl + c).
According to this docker doc and multiple StackOverflow threads, I need to catch the SIGTERM signal in the container and then run my custom script when the event appears. As I know SIGTERM can be only used from a root process with PID 1.
Relevand part of my Dockerfile:
...
COPY container-scripts/entrypoint.sh /
ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
I use [] to define the entrypoint and as I know this will run my script directly, without having a /bin/sh -c wrapper (PID 1), and when the script eventually exec another process, that process becomes the main process and will receive the docker stop signal.
entrypoint.sh:
...
# run the external bash script if it exists
BOOT_SCRIPT="/boot.sh"
if [ -f "$BOOT_SCRIPT" ]; then
printf ">> executing the '%s' script\n" "$BOOT_SCRIPT"
source "$BOOT_SCRIPT"
fi
# start something here
...
The boot.sh is used by child containers to execute something else that the child container wants. Everything is fine, my containers work like a charm.
ps axu in a child container:
PID USER TIME COMMAND
1 root 0:00 {entrypoint.sh} /bin/bash /entrypoint.sh
134 root 0:25 /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk/bin/java -server -D...
...
421 root 0:00 ps axu
Before stopping the container I need to run some commands automatically so I created a shutdown.sh bash script. This script works fine and does what I need. But I execute the shutdown script manually this way:
$ docker exec -it my-container /bin/bash
# /shutdown.sh
# exit
$ docker container stop my-container
I would like to automate the execution of the shutdown.sh script.
I tried to add the following to the entrypoint.sh but it does not work:
trap "echo 'hello SIGTERM'; source /shutdown.sh; exit" SIGTERM
What is wrong with my code?

Answer 1

Your help and comments guided me in the right direction.
I went through again the official documentations here, here, and here and finally I found what was the problem.
The issue was the following:
My entrypoint.sh script, which kept alive the container executed the following command at the end:
# start the ssh server
ssh-keygen -A
/usr/sbin/sshd -D -e "$#"
The -D option runs the ssh daemon in a NOT detach mode and sshd does not become a daemon. Actually, that was my intention, this is the way how I kept alive the container.
But this foreground process prevented to be executed properly the trap command. I changed the way how I started the sshd app and now it runs as a normal background process.
Then, I added the following command to keep alive my docker container (this is a recommended best practice):
tail -f /dev/null
But of course, the same issue appeared. Tail runs as a foreground process and the trap command does not do its job.
The only way how I can keep alive the container and let the entrypoint.sh runs as a foreign process in docker is the following:
while true; do
sleep 1
done
This way the trap command works fine and my bash function that handles the SIGINT, etc. signals runs properly when the time comes.
But honestly, I do not like this solution. This endless loop with a sleep looks ugly, but I have no idea at the moment how to manage it in a nice way :(
But this is another question that not belongs to this thread (but could be great if you can suggest my a better solution).