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Is there a command I can run to get the container's IP address right from the host after a new container is created?

Basically, once Docker creates the container, I want to roll my own code deployment and container configuration scripts.

The --format option of inspect comes to the rescue.

Modern Docker client syntax is:

docker inspect \
  -f '{{range.NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' container_name_or_id
Old Docker client syntax is:
docker inspect \
  --format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' container_name_or_id
These commands will return the Docker container's IP address.
As mentioned in the comments: if you are on Windows, use double quotes " instead of single quotes ' around the curly braces.
                !WARNING! This doesn't work anymore. The new format is specific to the container and follows the form {{ .NetworkSettings.Networks.$network.IPAddress }}. The default appears to be bridge, but under docker-compose this will be a specific name that depends on the name of your app  (I think from the --project-name flag, though that's also going to depend on what type of networking config you have set up). I wrote a full answer in an answer here stackoverflow.com/questions/17157721/…
– Dunk
                Feb 10, 2016 at 15:46
                Maybe I am a sleepy sheep, but the warning about double quotes was not bold and blinky enough to catch my attention.  Maybe provide two examples clearly labelled Linux and Windows.  I literally just typed the example, checked the docs which also uses single quotes and then Googled the error.  I'm sure I'm not alone.
– Wyck
                Apr 15, 2019 at 18:42
                Solution for peoples getting formatting error: docker inspect <container id> and scroll down you will find the container ip-address
– Ivandro Jao
                Jun 28, 2019 at 17:13
(First column is for container ID)
Use the container ID to run:
docker inspect <container ID>
At the bottom, under NetworkSettings, you can find IPAddress
Or just do for UNIX based:
docker inspect <container id> | grep "IPAddress"
And for Windows CMD:
docker inspect <container id> | findstr "IPAddress"
                Too bad, on one of my instances (started with docker run -it MYCONTAINER /bin/bash), the output of inspect has no section NetworkSettings!
– Eric
                Oct 12, 2017 at 10:16
                This doesn´t work on Windows 10. You need too find out the ip address of DockerNAT with ipconfig.
– ntiedt
                Nov 7, 2017 at 15:30
                @Eric You can also inspect network bridge for that: docker network inspect bridge | grep Gateway | grep -o -E '[0-9.]+'
– Tomasz Kapłoński
                Feb 13, 2018 at 7:12
                I greatly prefer the ... | grep IP solution to all the formatting details required to get IP.  +1
– d8aninja
                Mar 6, 2019 at 17:49
                @Eric - you've confused container with image. The command is actually docker run -it MYIMAGE (that isn't a container name); if you do docker inspect MYIMAGE you will get static information about the image.  You need to find the name of the running container (or use its id as others suggest). On my system, the first such container created from that image defaults to name MYIMAGE_1, so docker inspect MYIMAGE_1 has NetworkSettings.
– ToolmakerSteve
                Mar 29, 2019 at 19:27
                In order to extract the ip, you can do something like docker inspect $CID | grep IPAddress | cut -d '"' -f 4, it works fine :)
– creack
                Jun 17, 2013 at 23:39
                Bringing it all together, this shell alias should list all container ids and their ips: alias  dockerip='docker ps | tail -n +2 | while read cid b; do echo -n "$cid\t"; docker inspect $cid | grep IPAddress | cut -d \" -f 4; done'
– ko-dos
                Dec 12, 2013 at 11:22
                As mentionned by @user3119830, there is a new option to inspect. Now, you can get the Ip easier with docker inspect -format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' ${CID}
– creack
                Jan 7, 2014 at 2:48
                Just a note. The single dash options are being deprecated so that -format will become --format.
– jamtur01
                Mar 22, 2014 at 1:42
                docker inspect -format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' ${CID} is the new syntax. -format is deprecated, it becomes --format.
– Devy
                Aug 10, 2015 at 22:09
                This is definitely not the best answer. WouterD's answer is the answer you're looking for.
– M.Vanderlee
                Jun 12, 2018 at 23:48
                @M.Vanderlee this answer has a command that is easier to remember, which makes it a better answer IMO.
– huysentruitw
                Jul 5, 2018 at 12:25
                @WouterHuysentruit Sure, but you get multiple entries and the actual "IPAddress" text. You can't use it in a script without further manipulation.
– M.Vanderlee
                Jul 6, 2018 at 2:33
To get all container names and their IP addresses in just one single command.
docker inspect -f '{{.Name}} - {{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' $(docker ps -aq)
If you are using docker-compose the command will be this:
docker inspect -f '{{.Name}} - {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' $(docker ps -aq)
The output will be:
/containerA - 172.17.0.4
/containerB - 172.17.0.3
/containerC - 172.17.0.2
                I really like this but it doesn't work for Docker Compose as well, something to do with having their own network.  Instead change {{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress }} to {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}
– clockworkgeek
                Mar 13, 2016 at 16:57
                Here's the variation I use: docker inspect --format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' $(docker ps -aq | xargs) | sed -e '/^$/d'. The sed(1) removes empty lines for containers present, but not having an IP-address.
– NYCeyes
                Feb 5, 2020 at 16:01
                A little bit lame addition, but for anyone who needs to execute this command with sudo, here is this one liner: docker inspect -f '{{.Name}} - {{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' $(sudo docker ps -aq)
– Bart
                Feb 15 at 1:32
docker-ip() {
        docker inspect --format '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' "$@"
                Template parsing error: template: :1:19: executing "" at <.NetworkSettings.IPA...>: map has no entry for key "NetworkSettings"
– saiyancoder
                Dec 11, 2016 at 17:27
                You will get this error if you are not inspecting a running container, but just an image... an image doesn't have an IPAddress... terrible error message, yes
– dagelf
                Mar 31, 2019 at 9:43
Enter the running Docker (Linux):
docker exec [container-id or container-name] cat /etc/hosts
172.17.0.26 d8bc98fa4088
127.0.0.1   localhost
::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
172.17.0.17 mysql
For windows:
docker exec [container-id or container-name] ipconfig
As of Docker version 1.10.3, build 20f81dd
Unless you told Docker otherwise, Docker always launches your containers in the bridge network. So you can try this command below:
docker network inspect bridge
Which should then return a Containers section which will display the IP address for that running container. 
        "Name": "bridge",
        "Id": "40561e7d29a08b2eb81fe7b02736f44da6c0daae54ca3486f75bfa81c83507a0",
        "Scope": "local",
        "Driver": "bridge",
        "IPAM": {
            "Driver": "default",
            "Options": null,
            "Config": [
                    "Subnet": "172.17.0.0/16"
        "Containers": {
            "025d191991083e21761eb5a56729f61d7c5612a520269e548d0136e084ecd32a": {
                "Name": "drunk_leavitt",
                "EndpointID": "9f6f630a1743bd9184f30b37795590f13d87299fe39c8969294c8a353a8c97b3",
                "IPv4Address": "172.17.0.2/16",
                "IPv6Address": ""
        "Options": {
            "com.docker.network.bridge.default_bridge": "true",
            "com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc": "true",
            "com.docker.network.bridge.enable_ip_masquerade": "true",
            "com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4": "0.0.0.0",
            "com.docker.network.bridge.name": "docker0",
            "com.docker.network.driver.mtu": "1500"
My answer:
docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}} %tab% {{.Name}}' $(docker ps -aq
) | sed 's#%tab%#\t#g' | sed 's#/##g' | sort -t . -k 1,1n -k 2,2n -k 3,3n -k 4,4n
Also as a bash alias:
docker-ips() {   docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}} %tab% {{.Name}}' $(docker ps -aq) | sed 's#%tab%#\t#g' | sed 's#/##g' | sort -t . -k 1,1n -k 2,2n -k 3,3n -k 4,4n }
Output is sorted by IP address, and tab delimited:
# docker-ips
172.18.0.2       memcached
172.18.0.3       nginx
172.18.0.4       fpm-backup
172.18.0.5       dns
172.18.0.6       fpm-beta
172.18.0.7       exim
172.18.0.8       fpm-delta
172.18.0.9       mariadb
172.18.0.10      fpm-alpha
172.19.0.2       nextcloud-redis
172.19.0.3       nextcloud-db
172.19.0.4       nextcloud
This will display active docker images:
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                       PORTS               NAMES
3b733ae18c1c        parzee/database     "/usr/lib/postgresql/"   6 minutes ago       Up 6 minutes                 5432/tcp            serene_babbage
Use the CONTAINER ID value:
docker inspect <CONTAINER ID> | grep -w "IPAddress" | awk '{ print $2 }' | head -n 1 | cut -d "," -f1
"172.17.0.2"
Based on some of the answers I loved, I decided to merge them to a function to get all the IP addresses and another for an specific container. They are now in my .bashrc file.
docker-ips() {
    docker inspect --format='{{.Name}} - {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' $(docker ps -aq)
docker-ip() {
  docker inspect --format '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' "$@"
The first command gives the IP address of all the containers and the second a specific container's IP address.
docker-ips
docker-ip YOUR_CONTAINER_ID
Docker is written in Go and it uses Go syntax for query purposes too. 
To inspect the IP address of a particular container, you need to run the command (-f for "format"):
docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' container_id_or_name
For the container ID or name, you can run the command
docker container ls
which will list every running container.
I wrote the following Bash script to get a table of IP addresses from all containers running under docker-compose.
function docker_container_names() {
    docker ps -a --format "{{.Names}}" | xargs
# Get the IP address of a particular container
dip() {
    local network
    network='YOUR-NETWORK-HERE'
    docker inspect --format "{{ .NetworkSettings.Networks.$network.IPAddress }}" "$@"
dipall() {
    for container_name in $(docker_container_names);
        local container_ip=$(dip $container_name)
        if [[ -n "$container_ip" ]]; then
            echo $(dip $container_name) " $container_name"
    done | sort -t . -k 3,3n -k 4,4n
You should change the variable network to your own network name.
                Tuong Le answer from here stackoverflow.com/questions/17157721/… avoids having to specify the network in dip(): docker inspect --format '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' "$@"
– JoanComasFdz
                Jan 21, 2019 at 14:42
Here's is a solution that I developed today in Python, using the docker inspect container JSON output as the data source.
I have a lot of containers and infrastructures that I have to inspect, and I need to obtain basic network information from any container, in a fast and pretty manner. That's why I made this script.
IMPORTANT: Since the version 1.9, Docker allows you to create multiple networks and attach them to the containers.
#!/usr/bin/python
import json
import subprocess
import sys
    CONTAINER = sys.argv[1]
except Exception as e:
    print "\n\tSpecify the container name, please."
    print "\t\tEx.:  script.py my_container\n"
    sys.exit(1)
# Inspecting container via Subprocess
proc = subprocess.Popen(["docker","inspect",CONTAINER],
                      stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                      stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
out = proc.stdout.read()
json_data = json.loads(out)[0]
net_dict = {}
for network in json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"].keys():
    net_dict['mac_addr']  = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["MacAddress"]
    net_dict['ipv4_addr'] = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["IPAddress"]
    net_dict['ipv4_net']  = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["IPPrefixLen"]
    net_dict['ipv4_gtw']  = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["Gateway"]
    net_dict['ipv6_addr'] = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["GlobalIPv6Address"]
    net_dict['ipv6_net']  = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["GlobalIPv6PrefixLen"]
    net_dict['ipv6_gtw']  = json_data["NetworkSettings"]["Networks"][network]["IPv6Gateway"]
    for item in net_dict:
        if net_dict[item] == "" or net_dict[item] == 0:
            net_dict[item] = "null"
    print "\n[%s]" % network
    print "\n{}{:>13} {:>14}".format(net_dict['mac_addr'],"IP/NETWORK","GATEWAY")
    print "--------------------------------------------"
    print "IPv4 settings:{:>16}/{:<5}  {}".format(net_dict['ipv4_addr'],net_dict['ipv4_net'],net_dict['ipv4_gtw'])
    print "IPv6 settings:{:>16}/{:<5}  {}".format(net_dict['ipv6_addr'],net_dict['ipv6_net'],net_dict['ipv6_gtw'])
The output is:
$ python docker_netinfo.py debian1
[frontend]
02:42:ac:12:00:02   IP/NETWORK        GATEWAY
--------------------------------------------
IPv4 settings:      172.18.0.2/16     172.18.0.1
IPv6 settings:            null/null   null
[backend]
02:42:ac:13:00:02   IP/NETWORK        GATEWAY
--------------------------------------------
IPv4 settings:      172.19.0.2/16     172.19.0.1
IPv6 settings:            null/null   null
                Please, change to python2.7 in a script, python3 is now in common use or write two versions
– 42n4
                Apr 18, 2017 at 21:36
                I'll update my Gist and as soon as I have it, I'll post here. Indeed, this wrapper was designed for Python 2.7. Thanks for the feedback!
– ivanleoncz
                Apr 18, 2017 at 21:38
docker inspect --format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' <containername or containerID here>
The above works if the container is deployed to the default bridge network.
However, if using a custom bridge network or a overlay network, I found the below to work better:
docker exec <containername or containerID here> /sbin/ifconfig eth0 | grep 'inet addr:' | cut -d: -f2 | awk '{ print $1}'
To extend ko-dos' answer, here's an alias to list all container names and their IP addresses:
alias docker-ips='docker ps | tail -n +2 | while read -a a; do name=${a[$((${#a[@]}-1))]}; echo -ne "$name\t"; docker inspect $name | grep IPAddress | cut -d \" -f 4; done'
                That can be simplified quite a bit - use docker ps -q to avoid the tail, and --format to avoid the grep.  Also you can pass multiple container IDs to docker inspect rather than loop in shell.
– Bryan
                May 6, 2015 at 10:45
                docker ps -q only displays the containers' numeric IDs, but I think using their name is better. tail is only to get rid of the first line (table header) & is still needed. I could use --format, though: docker ps | tail -n +2 | while read -a a; do name=${a[$((${#a[@]}-1))]}; echo -ne "$name\t"; docker inspect --format="{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}" $name | cut -d \" -f 4; done. But that doesn't seem like a big improvement... the grep was more readable IMO.
– Marco Roy
                May 8, 2015 at 1:01
                Slightly altered version which lists IPs first, in one line together with the container name:  docker ps | tail -n +2 | while read -a a; do name=${a[$((${#a[@]}-1))]}; docker inspect $name | grep "IPAddress.*[0-9]\+" | cut -d \" -f 4 | tr "\n" " "; echo -e "\t${name}"; done
– Gilead
                Oct 21, 2016 at 9:56
                Actually like the style of this better docker ps | tail -n +2 | while read -a a; do name=${a[$((${#a[@]}-1))]}; echo ${name};docker inspect $name | grep "IPAddress.*[0-9]\+"; done
– Dennis G
                Jan 11, 2022 at 8:43
The most elegant and easy way is defining a shell function, currently the most-voted answer @WouterD's:
dockip() {
  docker inspect --format '{{ .NetworkSettings.IPAddress }}' "$@"
Docker can write container IDs to a file like Linux programs:
Running with --cidfile=filename, Docker dumps the ID of the container to "filename".
See "Docker runs PID equivalent Section" for more information.
--cidfile="app.cid": Write the container ID to the file
Using a PID file:
Running container with --cidfile parameter, the app.cid file content is like:
a29ac3b9f8aebf66a1ba5989186bd620ea66f1740e9fe6524351e7ace139b909
You can use file content to inspect Docker containers:
blog-v4 git:(develop) ✗ docker inspect `cat app.cid`
You can extract the container IP using an inline Python script:
$ docker inspect `cat app.cid` | python -c "import json;import sys;\
sys.stdout.write(json.load(sys.stdin)[0]['NetworkSettings']['IPAddress'])"
172.17.0.2
Here's a more human friendly form:
#!/usr/bin/env python
# Coding: utf-8
# Save this file like get-docker-ip.py in a folder that in $PATH
# Run it with
# $ docker inspect <CONTAINER ID> | get-docker-ip.py
import json
import sys
sys.stdout.write(json.load(sys.stdin)[0]['NetworkSettings']['IPAddress'])
See "10 alternatives of getting the Docker container IP addresses" for more information.
For those who came from Google to find a solution for command execution from the terminal (not by a script), "jid", which is an interactive JSON drill-down utility with autocomplete and suggestion, lets you do the same thing with less typing. 
docker inspect $CID | jid
Type Tab .Net Tab and you'll see something like:
[Filter]> .[0].NetworkSettings
  "Bridge": "",
  "EndpointID": "b69eb8bd4f11d8b172c82f21ab2e501fe532e4997fc007ed1a997750396355d5",
  "Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
  "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
  "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
  "HairpinMode": false,
  "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
  "IPPrefixLen": 16,
  "IPv6Gateway": "",
  "LinkLocalIPv6Address": "",
  "LinkLocalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
  "MacAddress": "02:42:ac:11:00:02",
  "Networks": {
    "bridge": {
      "Aliases": null,
      "EndpointID": "b69eb8bd4f11d8b172c82f21ab2e501fe532e4997fc007ed1a997750396355d5",
      "Gateway": "172.17.0.1",
      "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
Type .IPA Tab and you'll see something like:
[Filter]> .[0].NetworkSettings.IPAddress
"172.17.0.2"
Just for completeness:
I really like the --format option, but at first I wasn't aware of it so I used a simple Python one-liner to get the same result:
docker inspect <CONTAINER> |python -c 'import json,sys;obj=json.load(sys.stdin);print obj[0]["NetworkSettings"]["IPAddress"]'
If you installed Docker using Docker Toolbox, you can use the Kitematic application to get the container IP address:
Select the container
Click on Settings
Click in Ports tab.
                For me, the IP address was on the "Hostname/ports" tab, but this was nevertheless a very helpful answer!  Note that docker inspect does not work when you run docker toolbox. It will report an IP address, but it is not the correct address that your services will use.
– Göran Roseen
                Sep 10, 2018 at 12:55
The accepted answer does not work well with multiple networks per container:
> docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' cc54d96d63ea
172.20.0.4172.18.0.5
The next best answer is closer:
> docker inspect cc54d96d63ea | grep "IPAddress"
"SecondaryIPAddresses": null,
"IPAddress": "",
    "IPAddress": "172.20.0.4",
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.5",
I like to use jq to parse the network JSON:
> docker inspect cc54d96d63ea | jq -r 'map(.NetworkSettings.Networks) []'
  "proxy": {
    "IPAMConfig": null,
    "Links": [
      "server1_php_1:php",
      "server1_php_1:php_1",
      "server1_php_1:server1_php_1"
    "Aliases": [
      "cc54d96d63ea",
      "web"
    "NetworkID": "7779959d7383e9cef09c970c38c24a1a6ff44695178d314e3cb646bfa30d9935",
    "EndpointID": "4ac2c26113bf10715048579dd77304008904186d9679cdbc8fcea65eee0bf13b",
    "Gateway": "172.20.0.1",
    "IPAddress": "172.20.0.4",
    "IPPrefixLen": 24,
    "IPv6Gateway": "",
    "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
    "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
    "MacAddress": "02:42:ac:14:00:04",
    "DriverOpts": null
  "webservers": {
    "IPAMConfig": null,
    "Links": [
      "server1_php_1:php",
      "server1_php_1:php_1",
      "server1_php_1:server1_php_1"
    "Aliases": [
      "cc54d96d63ea",
      "web"
    "NetworkID": "907a7fba8816cd0ad89b7f5603bbc91122a2dd99902b504be6af16427c11a0a6",
    "EndpointID": "7febabe380d040b96b4e795417ba0954a103ac3fd37e9f6110189d9de92fbdae",
    "Gateway": "172.18.0.1",
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.5",
    "IPPrefixLen": 24,
    "IPv6Gateway": "",
    "GlobalIPv6Address": "",
    "GlobalIPv6PrefixLen": 0,
    "MacAddress": "02:42:ac:12:00:05",
    "DriverOpts": null
To list the IP addresses of every container then becomes:
for s in `docker ps -q`; do
  echo `docker inspect -f "{{.Name}}" ${s}`:
  docker inspect ${s} | jq -r 'map(.NetworkSettings.Networks) []' | grep "IPAddress";
/server1_web_1:
    "IPAddress": "172.20.0.4",
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.5",
/server1_php_1:
    "IPAddress": "172.20.0.3",
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.4",
/docker-gen:
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.3",
/nginx-proxy:
    "IPAddress": "172.20.0.2",
    "IPAddress": "172.18.0.2",
To get the IP address and host port of a container:
docker inspect containerId | awk '/IPAddress/ || /HostPort/'
Output:
    "HostPort": "4200"
                    "HostPort": "4200"
        "SecondaryIPAddresses": null,
        "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
                "IPAddress": "172.17.0.2",
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