[FIXED] Why doesn't Python app print anything when run in a detached docker container?

Issue

I have a Python (2.7) app which is started in my dockerfile:

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

main.py prints some strings when it is started and goes into a loop afterwards:

print "App started"
while True:
    time.sleep(1)

As long as I start the container with the -it flag, everything works as expected:

$ docker run --name=myapp -it myappimage
> App started

And I can see the same output via logs later:

$ docker logs myapp
> App started

If I try to run the same container with the -d flag, the container seems to start normally, but I can't see any output:

$ docker run --name=myapp -d myappimage
> b82db1120fee5f92c80000f30f6bdc84e068bafa32738ab7adb47e641b19b4d1
$ docker logs myapp
$ (empty)

But the container still seems to run;

$ docker ps
Container Status ...
myapp     up 4 minutes ... 

Attach does not display anything either:

$ docker attach --sig-proxy=false myapp
(working, no output)

Any ideas whats going wrong? Does "print" behave differently when ran in background?

Docker version:

Client version: 1.5.0
Client API version: 1.17
Go version (client): go1.4.2
Git commit (client): a8a31ef
OS/Arch (client): linux/arm
Server version: 1.5.0
Server API version: 1.17
Go version (server): go1.4.2
Git commit (server): a8a31ef

Solution

Finally I found a solution to see Python output when running daemonized in Docker, thanks to @ahmetalpbalkan over at GitHub. Answering it here myself for further reference :

Using unbuffered output with

CMD ["python","-u","main.py"]

instead of

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

solves the problem; you can see the output now (both, stderr and stdout) via

docker logs myapp

---

why -u ref

- print is indeed buffered and docker logs will eventually give you that output, just after enough of it will have piled up
- executing the same script with python -u gives instant output as said above
- import logging + logging.warning("text") gives the expected result even without -u

what it means by python -u ref. > python --help | grep -- -u

-u     : force the stdout and stderr streams to be unbuffered;

Answered By - jpdus