What is the difference between CMD vs Entrypoint?

CMD

You can set default commands with parameters using the CMD instruction. If you run a Docker container without specifying any additional CLI commands, the CMD instruction will be executed. You can include an executable as the default command. However, if you choose to omit it, you will have to specify an ENTRYPOINT instruction along with the CMD instruction. If you have specified an argument along with the Docker run command, the default one specified using the CMD instruction will be ignored. Also, if you have specified multiple CMD instructions inside a single docker file, the one specified at the last will only be executed.

The CMD instruction has three forms –

• CMD [“only_executable”,”parameter_1″,”parameter_1″] (executable form)
• CMD [“parameter_1″,”parameter_2”] (used to provide default parameters to the ENTRYPOINT instruction)
• CMD command param1 param2 (It is the shell form)

Entrypoint

The ENTRYPOINT instruction looks almost similar to the CMD instruction. However, the main highlighting difference between them is that it will not ignore any of the parameters that you have specified in the Docker run command (CLI parameters). When we have specified the ENTRYPOINT instruction in the executable form, it allows us to set or define some additional arguments/parameters using the CMD instruction in Docker file. If we have used it in the shell form, it will ignore any of the CMD parameters or even any CLI arguments.

The forms of the ENTRYPOINT Instruction are –

• ENTRYPOINT [“only_executable”, “parameter_1”, “parameter_2”] (executable form)
• ENTRYPOINT command parameter_1 parameter_2 (Shell form)