How can a running Docker container be stopped?

To stop a running Docker container, the command used is docker stop [container_id]. This command sends a SIGTERM signal to the main process within the container, which allows the application running inside the container to terminate gracefully. After a grace period (which is 10 seconds by default), if the container hasn’t stopped, a SIGKILL signal is sent to forcibly terminate the container.

The process of stopping a container is designed to give the application a chance to free up resources and perform any necessary cleanup tasks, making docker stop the appropriate choice when you want to ensure a graceful shutdown. This approach is particularly useful for production environments, where improper termination could potentially lead to data corruption or other issues.

The other commands focus on different functionalities. For instance, docker halt is not a valid command in this context and could be confused with other systems, while docker end does not exist in Docker's command set. Meanwhile, docker pause temporarily suspends processing within a container but does not stop the container, meaning that using it wouldn’t achieve the intended objective of stopping a running container.