Why I'm unable to COPY my files into docker container?

If you are trying to copy the directory public-html into the directory /usr/local/apache2/htdocs to have an .../htdocs/public-html/ directory, then use the following:

COPY public-html/ /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/public-html/

By default, copying a directory will copy the contents of that directory, so you need to name it in the target for the directory to appear.

Edit: Your run command contains a volume that will replace the image contents of this directory:

docker run -d --name apws -v /Users/ankitsahu/workspace/docker_practice/public-html:/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ -p 80:80 apache

If you want to see what's inside the image, do not use the volume:

docker run -d --name apws -p 80:80 apache

If instead you want to use the volume, then modify the contents of /Users/ankitsahu/workspace/docker_practice/public-html on your docker host.

Before you can COPY files to different directories other than root, you have to create them.

Update your Dockerfile to the following

FROM httpd:2.4 MAINTAINER Ankit MKDIR -p /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ # Create the directory with '-p' option. COPY ./public-html/ /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/

Edit 1

Based on the documentation Docker CP Command, if

DEST_PATH exists and is a directory and if

SRC_PATH does not end with /. (that is: slash followed by dot) the source directory is copied into this directory

SRC_PATH does end with /. (that is: slash followed by dot) the content of the source directory is copied into this directory

In your case /public-html/ does end with a slash, so only the contents must have been getting copied. Updating it to ./public-html should resolve the issue.

Hope this helps.