Container can be in one of the following states:
- stopped: container isn't running and doesn't use any system resources
- running: container is running
- paused: container is paused (it isn't running, but uses system resources)
- dead: container isn't running, but it has exit code and still use some system resources
- meta: it's a special running state for containers with unspecified command
The normal life cycle of container can looks as follows: (create) stopped -> (start) running -> (pause) paused -> (resume) running -> (main process quit) dead -> (stop) stopped
There are two types of container knobs:
- properties - setup container environment and limits
- data - readonly statistics and other container status information
Properties are generally modified in stopped state, while data is read mostly from running/dead containers.