Why docker exec is killing nohup process on exit? - bash

Question

I have running docker ubuntu container with just a bash script inside. I want to start my application inside that container with docker exec like that:
docker exec -it 0b3fc9dd35f2 ./main.sh
Inside main script I want to run another application with nohup as this is a long running application:
#!/bin/bash
nohup ./java.sh &
#with this strange sleep the script is working
#sleep 1
echo `date` finish main >> /status.log
The java.sh script is as follow (for simplicity it is a dummy script):
#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
echo `date` finish java >> /status.log
The problem is that java.sh is killed immediately after docker exec returns. The question is why?
The only solution I found out is to add some dummy sleep 1 into the first script after nohup is started. Than second process is running fine. Do you have any ideas why it is like that?
[EDIT]
Second solution is to add some echo or trap command to java.sh script just before sleep. Than it works fine. Unfortunately I cannot use this workaround as instead of this script I have java process.

Answer 1

This is not an answer, but I still don't have the required reputation to comment.
I don't know why the nohup doesn't work. But I did a workaround that worked, using your ideas:
docker exec -ti running_container bash -c 'nohup ./main.sh &> output & sleep 1'

Answer 2

Okay, let's join two answers above :D
First rcmgleite say exactly right: use
-d
options to run process as 'detached' background.
And second (the most important!) if you run detached process, you don't needed nohup!
deploy_app.sh
#!/bin/bash
cd /opt/git/app
git pull
python3 setup.py install
python3 -u webui.py >> nohup.out
Execute this inside a container
docker exec -itd container_name bash -c "/opt/scripts/deploy_app.sh"
Check it
$ docker attach container_name
$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.0 11768 1940 pts/0 Ss Aug31 0:00 /bin/bash
root 887 0.4 0.0 11632 1396 pts/1 Ss+ 02:47 0:00 /bin/bash /opt/scripts/deploy_app
root 932 31.6 0.4 235288 32332 pts/1 Sl+ 02:47 0:00 python3 -u webui.py

Answer 3

I know this is a late response but I will add it here for documentation reasons.
When using nohup on bash and running it with 'exec' on a docker container, you should use
$ docker exec -d 0b3fc9dd35f2 /bin/bash -c "./main.sh"
The -d option means:
-d, --detach Detached mode: run command in the
background
for more information about docker exec, see:
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/exec/
This should do the trick.