---
description: Learn how to run more than one process in a single container
keywords: docker, supervisor, process management
title: Run multiple processes in a container
weight: 20
aliases:
  - /articles/using_supervisord/
  - /engine/admin/multi-service_container/
  - /engine/admin/using_supervisord/
  - /engine/articles/using_supervisord/
  - /config/containers/multi-service_container/
---

A container's main running process is the `ENTRYPOINT` and/or `CMD` at the
end of the `Dockerfile`. It's best practice to separate areas of concern by
using one service per container. That service may fork into multiple
processes (for example, Apache web server starts multiple worker processes).
It's ok to have multiple processes, but to get the most benefit out of Docker,
avoid one container being responsible for multiple aspects of your overall
application. You can connect multiple containers using user-defined networks and
shared volumes.

The container's main process is responsible for managing all processes that it
starts. In some cases, the main process isn't well-designed, and doesn't handle
"reaping" (stopping) child processes gracefully when the container exits. If
your process falls into this category, you can use the `--init` option when you
run the container. The `--init` flag inserts a tiny init-process into the
container as the main process, and handles reaping of all processes when the
container exits. Handling such processes this way is superior to using a
full-fledged init process such as `sysvinit` or `systemd` to handle process
lifecycle within your container.

If you need to run more than one service within a container, you can achieve
this in a few different ways.

## Use a wrapper script

Put all of your commands in a wrapper script, complete with testing and
debugging information. Run the wrapper script as your `CMD`. The following is a
naive example. First, the wrapper script:

```bash
#!/bin/bash

# Start the first process
./my_first_process &

# Start the second process
./my_second_process &

# Wait for any process to exit
wait -n

# Exit with status of process that exited first
exit $?
```

Next, the Dockerfile:

```dockerfile
# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
FROM ubuntu:latest
COPY my_first_process my_first_process