PURPOSE: This chapter explains how to create a Docker image.
As explained in [Docker_Basics], Docker image is the build component of Docker and a read-only template of application operating system.
Docker build images by reading instructions from a Dockerfile. A Dockerfile is a text document that contains all the commands a user could call on the command line to assemble an image. docker build
command uses this file and executes all the commands in succession to create an image.
build
command is also passed a context that is used during image creation. This context can be a path on your local filesystem or a URL to a Git repository.
Dockerfile is usually called Dockerfile. The complete list of commands that can be specified in this file are explained at https://docs.docker.com/reference/builder/. The common commands are listed below:
Command | Purpose | Example |
---|---|---|
FROM |
First non-comment instruction in Dockerfile |
|
COPY |
Copies mulitple source files from the context to the file system of the container at the specified path |
|
ENV |
Sets the environment variable |
|
RUN |
Executes a command |
|
CMD |
Defaults for an executing container |
|
EXPOSE |
Informs the network ports that the container will listen on |
|
Create a new directory.
Create a new text file, name it Dockerfile, and use the following contents:
FROM ubuntu
CMD ["/bin/echo", "hello world"]
This image uses ubuntu
as the base image. CMD
command defines the command that needs to run. It provides a different entry point of /bin/echo
and gives the argument “hello world”.
Build the image:
> docker build -t helloworld .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 2.048 kB
Step 0 : FROM ubuntu
Pulling repository docker.io/library/ubuntu
a5a467fddcb8: Download complete
3fd0c2ae8ed2: Download complete
9e19ac89d27c: Download complete
ac65c371c3a5: Download complete
Status: Downloaded newer image for ubuntu:latest
---> a5a467fddcb8
Step 1 : CMD /bin/echo hello world
---> Running in 132bb0bf823f
---> e81a394f71e3
Removing intermediate container 132bb0bf823f
Successfully built e81a394f71e3
.
in this command is the context for docker build
.
List the images available:
> docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED VIRTUAL SIZE
helloworld latest 9c0e7b56cbee 13 minutes ago 187.9 MB
Run the container:
docker run helloworld
to see the output:
hello world
If you do not see the expected output, check your Dockerfile, build the image again, and now run it!
Change the base image from ubuntu
to busybox
in Dockerfile
. Build the image again:
docker build -t helloworld2 .
and view the images using docker images
command:
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED VIRTUAL SIZE
helloworld latest e81a394f71e3 26 minutes ago 187.9 MB
helloworld2 latest c458787fadcf 3 seconds ago 1.113 MB
ubuntu latest a5a467fddcb8 2 days ago 187.9 MB
busybox latest 3d5bcd78e074 4 days ago 1.113 MB
Note how base images for Ubuntu and Busybox are downloaded.
Create a new Java project:
mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=org.examples.java -DartifactId=helloworld -DinteractiveMode=false
Build the project:
cd helloworld
mvn package
Run the Java class:
java -cp target/helloworld-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar org.examples.java.App
This shows the output:
Hello World!
Let’s package this application as a Docker image.
Pull the latest Docker image for Java:
docker pull java
Run the container in an interactive manner:
docker run -it java
Check the version of Java:
root@44b355b45ab1:/# java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_72-internal"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_72-internal-b15)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.72-b15, mixed mode)
A different version may be seen in your case.
Create a new Dockerfile in helloworld
directory:
FROM java
COPY target/helloworld-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar /usr/src/helloworld-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar
CMD java -cp /usr/src/helloworld-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar org.examples.java.App
Build the image:
docker build -t hello-java .
Run the image:
docker run hello-java
This displays the output:
Hello World!
Docker Maven Plugin allows you to manage Docker images and containers using Maven. It comes with predefined goals:
Goal | Description |
---|---|
|
Build images |
|
Create and start containers |
|
Stop and destroy containers |
|
Push images to a registry |
|
Remove images from local docker host |
|
Show container logs |
Clone the sample code from https://github.com/arun-gupta/docker-java-sample/.
Create the Docker image:
cd docker-java-sample
mvn package -Pdocker
This will show an output like:
[INFO] DOCKER> [hello-java] : Built image sha256:09ab7
The list of images can be checked:
docker images | grep hello-java
hello-java latest 09ab715ec59d 44 seconds ago 642.4 MB
Run the Docker container:
mvn install -Pdocker
This will show an output like:
[INFO] DOCKER> [hello-java] : Start container 11550a8dc086
[INFO] DOCKER> [hello-java] : Waited on log out 'Hello' 503 ms
[INFO]
[INFO] --- docker-maven-plugin:0.14.2:logs (docker:start) @ helloworld ---
11550a> Hello World!
This is similar output when running the container using docker run
command.
Only one change was required in the project to enable Docker packaging and running. A Maven profile is added in pom.xml
:
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>docker</id>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>io.fabric8</groupId>
<artifactId>docker-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.14.2</version>
<configuration>
<images>
<image>
<name>hello-java</name>
<build>
<from>java</from>
<assembly>
<descriptorRef>artifact</descriptorRef>
</assembly>
<cmd>java -cp maven/${project.name}-${project.version}.jar org.examples.java.App</cmd>
</build>
<run>
<wait>
<log>Hello</log>
</wait>
</run>
</image>
</images>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>docker:build</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>build</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
<execution>
<id>docker:start</id>
<phase>install</phase>
<goals>
<goal>start</goal>
<goal>logs</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>
</profiles>
TL;DR CMD
will work for most of the cases.
Default entry point for a container is /bin/sh
, the default shell.
Running a container as docker run -it ubuntu
uses that command and starts the default shell. The output is shown as:
> docker run -it ubuntu
root@88976ddee107:/#
ENTRYPOINT
allows to override the entry point to some other command, and even customize it. For example, a container can be started as:
> docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/cat ubuntu /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/usr/sbin/nologin
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/usr/sbin/nologin
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/usr/sbin/nologin
. . .
This command overrides the entry point to the container to /bin/cat
. The argument(s) passed to the CLI are used by the entry point.
TL;DR COPY
will work for most of the cases.
ADD
has all capabilities of COPY
and has the following additional features:
-
Allows tar file auto-extraction in the image, for example,
ADD app.tar.gz /opt/var/myapp
. -
Allows files to be downloaded from a remote URL. However, the downloaded files will become part of the image. This causes the image size to bloat. So its recommended to use
curl
orwget
to download the archive explicitly, extract, and remove the archive.