What you are looking for is called Container Checkpoint and Recovery ( CRIU ). Most people thinking of this for Docker have heard of the famous Quake Demo demo at DockerCon in 2015. This is an impressive technological demonstration. In any case, there was some movement in Docker last year due to how much people want this feature ( here is an example of teams that are no longer available in later versions). However, it was decided that too much was going on in the docker-engine to create a breakpoint and restore as a function, and so it was pulled out. Now, I know from #docker on the Freenode IRC that the breakpoint and recovery will return to Docker in the end! As soon as things settle in the docker-engine .