Docker Volume Migrator

Interactive command-line tool to copy Docker named volumes between two remote hosts over SSH – no local Docker daemon required.

❗️It's mostly vibecoded, since I needed it quick, but I am actively using it now 😅

Features

• 📦 Stream-based transfer – data is piped directly between hosts, never written to disk
• 🔐 SSH first – authenticate with existing SSH keys/agents
• 🎛️ Interactive wizard – guided, step-by-step prompts to pick source/target hosts & volumes
• 🐳 Minimal deps – only needs Docker & ssh on your machine; the rest happens remotely
• 🪄 One command – install & run in seconds

TL;DR

pip install uv
uvx --from docker-volume-migrator docker-volume-migrate

TODO (PRs welcome)

• Direct host to host transfer with ssh keys transfer
• Tests
• CLI options
• Non-interactive / automation
• Better overwrite control

Installation

pip install docker-volume-migrator

or install the bleeding-edge version from GitHub:

pip install git+https://github.com/djbios/docker-volume-migrator.git

Usage

docker-volume-migrate

The wizard will:

1. Ask for the source host (SSH hostname/IP)
2. List its Docker volumes and let you pick which to copy
3. Ask for the target host
4. Let you create new destination volumes or map to existing ones
5. Show a summary and start the streaming transfer

Non-interactive / automation

All prompts have sensible defaults and can be pre-answered by setting environment variables or using CLI options (coming soon).

How it works

Under the hood, data is transferred via a TAR streaming pipeline:

ssh SRC_HOST "docker run --rm -v SRC_VOL:/from alpine tar czf - -C /from ." \
  | ssh DST_HOST "docker run --rm -i -v DST_VOL:/to alpine tar xzf - -C /to"

No temporary files, no Docker daemon on your workstation.

Contributing

Pull requests welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss major changes.

# set up dev env
git clone https://github.com/djbios/docker-volume-migrator.git
cd docker-volume-migrator
uv venv  # or python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e .[dev]
pre-commit install

License

MIT © djbios