How to fix Container exited with code 130 (SIGINT - Ctrl+C) in Docker

Exit code 130 is not an error - it's the standard Unix way of indicating that a process was interrupted by SIGINT (Ctrl+C). If you intentionally stopped the container with Ctrl+C, this exit code is correct and expected.

# Check container exit code
docker inspect <container> --format='{{.State.ExitCode}}'
# Output: 130

The container exited cleanly in response to your interrupt signal.

If you don't want to accidentally stop containers with Ctrl+C, run them in detached mode:

# Run in detached mode (background)
docker run -d --name mycontainer myimage

# View logs without attaching
docker logs -f mycontainer

# Stop gracefully when needed
docker stop mycontainer

With detached mode, Ctrl+C only stops the log following, not the container itself.

If your container doesn't respond to Ctrl+C properly, use the --init flag to add a minimal init process that handles signals correctly:

docker run --init -it myimage

The init process (tini) runs as PID 1 and properly forwards signals to your application, ensuring clean shutdown behavior.

For graceful shutdown, your application should handle SIGINT and SIGTERM:

# Python example
import signal
import sys

def signal_handler(signum, frame):
    print("Received signal, shutting down gracefully...")
    # Cleanup code here
    sys.exit(0)

signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
signal.signal(signal.SIGTERM, signal_handler)

// Node.js example
process.on('SIGINT', () => {
  console.log('Received SIGINT, shutting down...');
  // Cleanup code here
  process.exit(0);
});

The exec form of CMD/ENTRYPOINT ensures your process receives signals directly:

# Exec form (recommended) - signals go directly to your app
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

# Shell form (not recommended) - signals go to /bin/sh
CMD node server.js

With shell form, /bin/sh runs as PID 1 and may not forward signals to your application.

If your CI/CD pipeline treats exit code 130 as a failure, you may need to handle it explicitly:

# Bash script example
docker run mycontainer || exit_code=$?
if [ "$exit_code" -eq 130 ]; then
  echo "Container was interrupted (expected)"
  exit 0
fi
exit $exit_code

Or in your CI configuration, mark 130 as an acceptable exit code for cancelled jobs.