# How to Mount a Host Directory in a Docker Container?

If you want to mound a host directory in a Docker container, you have to main ways to do that:

## Using the `ADD` command:

The simplest way is to use the dockers ADD command as shown below:

```bash
ADD . /path/inside/docker/container
```

This command will copy the files from the current working directory to the path in the docker container specified in the command.

However, any changes made to this directory on the host after building the dockerfile will not show up in the container. This is because when building a container, docker compresses the directory into a `.tar` and uploads that *context* into the container permanently.

## Mount a volume

The second way to do this is to mount a volume. Due to docker trying to be as portable as possible, you cannot map a host directory to a docker container directory within a dockerfile, because the host directory can change depending on which machine you are running on. To map a host directory to a docker container directory you need to use the `-v` flag when using `docker run`

```bash
docker run \
    -v /tmp:/container/directory \
    <container> \
    ls /container/directory
```

If you are new to Docker, feel free to start with our [Getting started logging guide](https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/how-to-start-logging-with-docker/).

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