compose: docker-compose up --timeout does not appear to work

I understand that “Docker” is made of multiple pieces and that you can update/install those independently. That’s a great design and I’m grateful for that, but to most people (especially those on Mac and Windows) they go to docker.com and download the installer and that’s “Docker”, so a serious regression like this really needs to be fixed in a point release. Basically, just because you’re doing things right in one area (separation of responsibility) doesn’t excuse you from doing the right thing in another area (proper release management), because most users of “Docker” have no idea how to manually upgrade/downgrade a single component, and even if they did do it, they’ll be cursing your name the entire time. 😉

Oh, I see what you mean now. We should probably revert the changes in #5435 . As a workaround in the meantime, you can use docker-compose stop --timeout X && docker-compose up -d

Just Restart your docker Desktop!

Our use case is pulling an updated image and then calling docker-compose up to restart with the new container, but here’s a simpler example that demonstrates why --timeout is needed and my question is what’s the correct way to specify a timeout since --timeout is no longer available.

test_timeout.py

import logging
import signal
import time
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

logging.basicConfig(level='INFO')
log = logging.getLogger(__name__)

g_running = True


def _stop(signum, _):
    log.warning("Stopping: signum %d", signum)
    global g_running
    g_running = False


def main():
    log.info('Registered signals')
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, _stop)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGTERM, _stop)

    log.info('Starting processing')
    done_time = datetime.now() + timedelta(seconds=15)
    while g_running:
        while datetime.now() < done_time:
            time.sleep(0.1)
        done_time = datetime.now() + timedelta(seconds=15)
        log.info('Processed')

    log.info('Stopped')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Dockerfile

FROM python:3.6.4-alpine3.7

RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app 

COPY test_timeout.py .

CMD ["python", "test_timeout.py"]

test_timeout.yml

version: '2'

services:
    test_timeout:
        container_name: test_timeout
        image: test_timeout

Then run the following:

docker build -t test_timeout .
docker-compose -f test_timeout.yml up --timeout 60

And in a separate terminal run the following after it prints Processed:

docker restart test_timeout

@shin- Since this is a regression that removes functionality that had existed for quite some time, can we please get some guidance on the proper way to set the timeout using docker-compose?

@shin- I see now that I misunderstood what the --timeout was for, its for when you run docker-compose up and it has to shutdown the container first to start a new one, that’s the timeout associated with that shutdown only (if I read the code correctly). I can see how the help message is saying that now, but yes, it could use a little clarifying.

I think a better solution to my problem is… Can we make it so that when docker-compose creates a new container, if stop_grace_period is specified, then it adds StopTimeout to the Config? Just to clarify, that’s the ONLY small change I’m suggesting. You already have the use of stop_grace_period when you run docker-compose stop, and I’m not suggesting changing how any of that already works. Simply adding that attribute to the Config of the container. This way other docker apis (such as the docker cli and dockerd) know and respect this timeout too.