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How can I include files from outside of Docker's build context using the "ADD" command in the Docker file?
From the Docker documentation:
The path must be inside the context of the build; you cannot ADD
../something/something, because the first step of a docker build is to
send the context directory (and subdirectories) to the docker daemon.
I do not want to restructure my whole project just to accommodate Docker in this matter. I want to keep all my Docker files in the same sub-directory.
Also, it appears Docker does not yet (and may not ever) support symlinks: Dockerfile ADD command does not follow symlinks on host #1676.
The only other thing I can think of is to include a pre-build step to copy the files into the Docker build context (and configure my version control to ignore those files). Is there a better workaround for than that?
The best way to work around this is to specify the Dockerfile independently of the build context, using -f.
For instance, this command will give the ADD command access to anything in your current directory.
docker build -f docker-files/Dockerfile .
Update: Docker now allows having the Dockerfile outside the build context (fixed in 18.03.0-ce). So you can also do something like
docker build -f ../Dockerfile .
I often find myself utilizing the --build-arg option for this purpose. For example after putting the following in the Dockerfile:
ARG SSH_KEY
RUN echo "$SSH_KEY" > /root/.ssh/id_rsa
You can just do:
docker build -t some-app --build-arg SSH_KEY="$(cat ~/file/outside/build/context/id_rsa)" .
But note the following warning from the Docker documentation:
Warning: It is not recommended to use build-time variables for passing secrets like github keys, user credentials etc. Build-time variable values are visible to any user of the image with the docker history command.
I spent a good time trying to figure out a good pattern and how to better explain what's going on with this feature support. I realized that the best way to explain it was as follows...
Dockerfile: Will only see files under its own relative path
Context: a place in "space" where the files you want to share and your Dockerfile will be copied to
So, with that said, here's an example of the Dockerfile that needs to reuse a file called start.sh
Dockerfile
It will always load from its relative path, having the current directory of itself as the local reference to the paths you specify.
COPY start.sh /runtime/start.sh
Files
Considering this idea, we can think of having multiple copies for the Dockerfiles building specific things, but they all need access to the start.sh.
./all-services/
/start.sh
/service-X/Dockerfile
/service-Y/Dockerfile
/service-Z/Dockerfile
./docker-compose.yaml
Considering this structure and the files above, here's a docker-compose.yml
docker-compose.yaml
In this example, your shared context directory is the runtime directory.
Same mental model here, think that all the files under this directory are moved over to the so-called context.
Similarly, just specify the Dockerfile that you want to copy to that same directory. You can specify that using dockerfile.
The directory where your main content is located is the actual context to be set.
The docker-compose.yml is as follows
version: "3.3"
services:
service-A
build:
context: ./all-service
dockerfile: ./service-A/Dockerfile
service-B
build:
context: ./all-service
dockerfile: ./service-B/Dockerfile
service-C
build:
context: ./all-service
dockerfile: ./service-C/Dockerfile
all-service is set as the context, the shared file start.sh is copied there as well the Dockerfile specified by each dockerfile.
Each gets to be built their own way, sharing the start file!
On Linux you can mount other directories instead of symlinking them
mount --bind olddir newdir
See https://superuser.com/questions/842642 for more details.
I don't know if something similar is available for other OSes.
I also tried using Samba to share a folder and remount it into the Docker context which worked as well.
If you read the discussion in the issue 2745 not only docker may never support symlinks they may never support adding files outside your context. Seems to be a design philosophy that files that go into docker build should explicitly be part of its context or be from a URL where it is presumably deployed too with a fixed version so that the build is repeatable with well known URLs or files shipped with the docker container.
I prefer to build from a version controlled source - ie docker build
-t stuff http://my.git.org/repo - otherwise I'm building from some random place with random files.
fundamentally, no.... -- SvenDowideit, Docker Inc
Just my opinion but I think you should restructure to separate out the code and docker repositories. That way the containers can be generic and pull in any version of the code at run time rather than build time.
Alternatively, use docker as your fundamental code deployment artifact and then you put the dockerfile in the root of the code repository. if you go this route probably makes sense to have a parent docker container for more general system level details and a child container for setup specific to your code.
I believe the simpler workaround would be to change the 'context' itself.
So, for example, instead of giving:
docker build -t hello-demo-app .
which sets the current directory as the context, let's say you wanted the parent directory as the context, just use:
docker build -t hello-demo-app ..
You can also create a tarball of what the image needs first and use that as your context.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/build/#/tarball-contexts
This behavior is given by the context directory that the docker or podman uses to present the files to the build process.
A nice trick here is by changing the context dir during the building instruction to the full path of the directory, that you want to expose to the daemon.
e.g:
docker build -t imageName:tag -f /path/to/the/Dockerfile /mysrc/path
using /mysrc/path instead of .(current directory), you'll be using that directory as a context, so any files under it can be seen by the build process.
This example you'll be exposing the entire /mysrc/path tree to the docker daemon.
When using this with docker the user ID who triggered the build must have recursively read permissions to any single directory or file from the context dir.
This can be useful in cases where you have the /home/user/myCoolProject/Dockerfile but want to bring to this container build context, files that aren't in the same directory.
Here is an example of building using context dir, but this time using podman instead of docker.
Lets take as example, having inside your Dockerfile a COPY or ADDinstruction which is copying files from a directory outside of your project, like:
FROM myImage:tag
...
...
COPY /opt/externalFile ./
ADD /home/user/AnotherProject/anotherExternalFile ./
...
In order to build this, with a container file located in the /home/user/myCoolProject/Dockerfile, just do something like:
cd /home/user/myCoolProject
podman build -t imageName:tag -f Dockefile /
Some known use cases to change the context dir, is when using a container as a toolchain for building your souce code.
e.g:
podman build --platform linux/s390x -t myimage:mytag -f ./Dockerfile /tmp/mysrc
or it can be a path relative, like:
podman build --platform linux/s390x -t myimage:mytag -f ./Dockerfile ../../
Another example using this time a global path:
FROM myImage:tag
...
...
COPY externalFile ./
ADD AnotherProject ./
...
Notice that now the full global path for the COPY and ADD is omitted in the Dockerfile command layers.
In this case the contex dir must be relative to where the files are, if both externalFile and AnotherProject are in /opt directory then the context dir for building it must be:
podman build -t imageName:tag -f ./Dockerfile /opt
Note when using COPY or ADD with context dir in docker:
The docker daemon will try to "stream" all the files visible on the context dir tree to the daemon, which can slowdown the build. And requires the user to have recursively permission from the context dir.
This behavior can be more costly specially when using the build through the API. However,with podman the build happens instantaneously, without needing recursively permissions, that's because podman does not enumerate the entire context dir, and doesn't use a client/server architecture as well.
The build for such cases can be way more interesting to use podman instead of docker, when you face such issues using a different context dir.
Some references:
https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/build/
https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-build.1.html
As is described in this GitHub issue the build actually happens in /tmp/docker-12345, so a relative path like ../relative-add/some-file is relative to /tmp/docker-12345. It would thus search for /tmp/relative-add/some-file, which is also shown in the error message.*
It is not allowed to include files from outside the build directory, so this results in the "Forbidden path" message."
Using docker-compose, I accomplished this by creating a service that mounts the volumes that I need and committing the image of the container. Then, in the subsequent service, I rely on the previously committed image, which has all of the data stored at mounted locations. You will then have have to copy these files to their ultimate destination, as host mounted directories do not get committed when running a docker commit command
You don't have to use docker-compose to accomplish this, but it makes life a bit easier
# docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
stage:
image: alpine
volumes:
- /host/machine/path:/tmp/container/path
command: bash -c "cp -r /tmp/container/path /final/container/path"
setup:
image: stage
# setup.sh
# Start "stage" service
docker-compose up stage
# Commit changes to an image named "stage"
docker commit $(docker-compose ps -q stage) stage
# Start setup service off of stage image
docker-compose up setup
Create a wrapper docker build shell script that grabs the file then calls docker build then removes the file.
a simple solution not mentioned anywhere here from my quick skim:
have a wrapper script called docker_build.sh
have it create tarballs, copy large files to the current working directory
call docker build
clean up the tarballs, large files, etc
this solution is good because (1.) it doesn't have the security hole from copying in your SSH private key (2.) another solution uses sudo bind so that has another security hole there because it requires root permission to do bind.
I think as of earlier this year a feature was added in buildx to do just this.
If you have dockerfile 1.4+ and buildx 0.8+ you can do something like this
docker buildx build --build-context othersource= ../something/something .
Then in your docker file you can use the from command to add the context
ADD –from=othersource . /stuff
See this related post https://www.docker.com/blog/dockerfiles-now-support-multiple-build-contexts/
Workaround with links:
ln path/to/file/outside/context/file_to_copy ./file_to_copy
On Dockerfile, simply:
COPY file_to_copy /path/to/file
I was personally confused by some answers, so decided to explain it simply.
You should pass the context, you have specified in Dockerfile, to docker when
want to create image.
I always select root of project as the context in Dockerfile.
so for example if you use COPY command like COPY . .
first dot(.) is the context and second dot(.) is container working directory
Assuming the context is project root, dot(.) , and code structure is like this
sample-project/
docker/
Dockerfile
If you want to build image
and your path (the path you run the docker build command) is /full-path/sample-project/,
you should do this
docker build -f docker/Dockerfile .
and if your path is /full-path/sample-project/docker/,
you should do this
docker build -f Dockerfile ../
An easy workaround might be to simply mount the volume (using the -v or --mount flag) to the container when you run it and access the files that way.
example:
docker run -v /path/to/file/on/host:/desired/path/to/file/in/container/ image_name
for more see: https://docs.docker.com/storage/volumes/
I had this same issue with a project and some data files that I wasn't able to move inside the repo context for HIPAA reasons. I ended up using 2 Dockerfiles. One builds the main application without the stuff I needed outside the container and publishes that to internal repo. Then a second dockerfile pulls that image and adds the data and creates a new image which is then deployed and never stored anywhere. Not ideal, but it worked for my purposes of keeping sensitive information out of the repo.
In my case, my Dockerfile is written like a template containing placeholders which I'm replacing with real value using my configuration file.
So I couldn't specify this file directly but pipe it into the docker build like this:
sed "s/%email_address%/$EMAIL_ADDRESS/;" ./Dockerfile | docker build -t katzda/bookings:latest . -f -;
But because of the pipe, the COPY command didn't work. But the above way solves it by -f - (explicitly saying file not provided). Doing only - without the -f flag, the context AND the Dockerfile are not provided which is a caveat.
How to share typescript code between two Dockerfiles
I had this same problem, but for sharing files between two typescript projects. Some of the other answers didn't work for me because I needed to preserve the relative import paths between the shared code. I solved it by organizing my code like this:
api/
Dockerfile
src/
models/
index.ts
frontend/
Dockerfile
src/
models/
index.ts
shared/
model1.ts
model2.ts
index.ts
.dockerignore
Note: After extracting the shared code into that top folder, I avoided needing to update the import paths because I updated api/models/index.ts and frontend/models/index.ts to export from shared: (eg export * from '../../../shared)
Since the build context is now one directory higher, I had to make a few additional changes:
Update the build command to use the new context:
docker build -f Dockerfile .. (two dots instead of one)
Use a single .dockerignore at the top level to exclude all node_modules. (eg **/node_modules/**)
Prefix the Dockerfile COPY commands with api/ or frontend/
Copy shared (in addition to api/src or frontend/src)
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY api/package*.json ./ <---- Prefix with api/
RUN npm ci
COPY api/src api/ts*.json ./ <---- Prefix with api/
COPY shared usr/src/shared <---- ADDED
RUN npm run build
This was the easiest way I could send everything to docker, while preserving the relative import paths in both projects. The tricky (annoying) part was all the changes/consequences caused by the build context being up one directory.
One quick and dirty way is to set the build context up as many levels as you need - but this can have consequences.
If you're working in a microservices architecture that looks like this:
./Code/Repo1
./Code/Repo2
...
You can set the build context to the parent Code directory and then access everything, but it turns out that with a large number of repositories, this can result in the build taking a long time.
An example situation could be that another team maintains a database schema in Repo1 and your team's code in Repo2 depends on this. You want to dockerise this dependency with some of your own seed data without worrying about schema changes or polluting the other team's repository (depending on what the changes are you may still have to change your seed data scripts of course)
The second approach is hacky but gets around the issue of long builds:
Create a sh (or ps1) script in ./Code/Repo2 to copy the files you need and invoke the docker commands you want, for example:
#!/bin/bash
rm -r ./db/schema
mkdir ./db/schema
cp -r ../Repo1/db/schema ./db/schema
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml down
docker container prune -f
docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up --build
In the docker-compose file, simply set the context as Repo2 root and use the content of the ./db/schema directory in your dockerfile without worrying about the path.
Bear in mind that you will run the risk of accidentally committing this directory to source control, but scripting cleanup actions should be easy enough.
In my case, I am creating a config.json that I need to copy from the host to my container.
I figured out there is some option that I can pass args to my dockerfile.
so first step is :
1.create Dockerfile:
FROM golang
WORKDIR /go/src/app
COPY . . /* here we have /foo directory */
COPY $CONFIG_PATH ./foo/
EXPOSE $PORT
CMD ["./foo/run", "-config", "./foo/config.json"]
as you can see, I have 2 variable [ "$CONFIG_PATH", "$PORT"].
so these to variables are dynamic and comes from my command in docker run.
here I need to copy my config file from my host to my container, and I need to run my project with that config.json file.
after building image:
second step:
get my config file from user and run the docker image with these variables.
let configFilePath = '/home/baazz/baaaf/config.json'
let port = "8080"
docker.run('my_image', null, process.stdout, { Env: [`$CONFIG_PATH=${configFilePath}`, `$PORT=${port}`] }).then(data => {
}).catch(err => { console.log(err) })
I am getting this error message when I am trying to execute my code.
Error opening JSON configuration (./foo/config.json): open
./foo/config.json: no such file or directory . Terminating.
You generally don’t want to COPY configuration files like this in your Docker image. You should be able to docker run the same image in multiple environments without modification.
Instead, you can use the docker run -v option to inject the correct config file when you run the image:
docker run -v $PWD/config-dev.json:/go/src/app/foo/config.json my_image
(The Dockerode home page shows an equivalent Binds option. In Docker Compose, this goes into the per-container volumes:. There’s no requirement that the two paths or file names match.)
Since file paths like this become part of the external interface to how people run your container, you generally don’t want to make them configurable at build time. Pick a fixed path and document that that’s the place to mount your custom config file.
node.js application, built and deployed using docker-compose, doesn't see any custom set variables. console.log(process.env.VAR) logs undefined to console for any of those.
Variables are set using env_file property in yaml file. Only env_file property is used. There is an ENV value set in Dockerfile and it's accessible by the application.
docker exec -it <container-id> envdoes return all custom values. docker exec -it <container-id> sh returns only those set in base image - node-alpine (wiped out by exec?).
What can be wrong with the setup?
I've found that the issue is not with the compose file or wrong usage of env_file field.
The issue was with the env file itself. It used spaces when setting values. Like this: VAR = VAL instead of VAR=VAL.
While dotenv npm package allows this (I've used a sample that comes with a project as a base for deployment), docker and environment don't.
I am trying to achieve something incredibly basic, but have been going at this for a couple of evenings now and still haven't found a solid (or any) solution. I have found some similar topics on SO and followed what was on there but to no avail, so I have created a GitHub repo for my specific case.
What I'm trying to do:
Be able to provision NodeJS app using docker-compose up -d (I plan to add further containers in future, omitted from this example)
Ensure the code is mapped via volumes so I don't have to re-build every time I make a change to some code locally.
My guess is the issue I'm encountering is something to do with the mapping of volumes causing some files to be lost/overwritten within the container, for instance in some of the variations I've tried the folders are being mapped but individual files are not.
I've created a simple repo to illustrate my issue, just checkout and run docker-compose up -d to see the issue, the container dies due to:
Error: Cannot find module '/src/app/app.js'
The link to the repo is here: https://github.com/josephmcdermott/nodejs-docker-issue, PR's welcome and if anybody can solve this for me I'd be eternally grateful.
UPDATE: please see the solution code below, kind thanks to ldg
Dockerfile
FROM node:4.4.7
RUN mkdir -p /src
COPY . /src
WORKDIR /src
RUN npm install
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "/src/app.js"]
docker-compose.yml
app:
build: .
volumes:
- ./app:/src/app
Folder Structure:
- app
- - * (files I want to sync and regularly update)
- app.js (initial script to call files within app/)
- Dockerfile
- docker-compose.yml
- package.json
In your compose file, the last line - /src/app/node_modules is likely mapping over your previous volume. If you mount /scr/app then node_modules will get created in that linked volume. So it would look like this:
app:
build: .
volumes:
- ./app:/src/app
If you do want to keep your entire /app directory as a linked volume, you'll need to either do npm install when starting the container (which would insure it picks up any updates) OR don't link the volume and update your Dockerfile to copy the entire /app directory. This is nice because it gives you a self-contained image. I usually Dockerize my Node.js apps this way. You can also run npm test as appropriate to verify the image.
If you need to create a linked volume for a script file you want to be able to edit (or if your app generates side-effects), you can link just that directory or file via Docker volumes.
Btw, if you want to make sure you don't copy the contents of that directory in the future, add it to .dockerignore (as well as .gitignore).
Notice the '/' at the end
volumes:
- ./app:/src/app/
This declaration is not correct
volumes:
- ./app:/src/app
I've been experimenting with Docker recently on building some services to play around with and one thing that keeps nagging me has been putting passwords in a Dockerfile. I'm a developer so storing passwords in source feels like a punch in the face. Should this even be a concern? Are there any good conventions on how to handle passwords in Dockerfiles?
Definitely it is a concern. Dockerfiles are commonly checked in to repositories and shared with other people. An alternative is to provide any credentials (usernames, passwords, tokens, anything sensitive) as environment variables at runtime. This is possible via the -e argument (for individual vars on the CLI) or --env-file argument (for multiple variables in a file) to docker run. Read this for using environmental with docker-compose.
Using --env-file is definitely a safer option since this protects against the secrets showing up in ps or in logs if one uses set -x.
However, env vars are not particularly secure either. They are visible via docker inspect, and hence they are available to any user that can run docker commands. (Of course, any user that has access to docker on the host also has root anyway.)
My preferred pattern is to use a wrapper script as the ENTRYPOINT or CMD. The wrapper script can first import secrets from an outside location in to the container at run time, then execute the application, providing the secrets. The exact mechanics of this vary based on your run time environment. In AWS, you can use a combination of IAM roles, the Key Management Service, and S3 to store encrypted secrets in an S3 bucket. Something like HashiCorp Vault or credstash is another option.
AFAIK there is no optimal pattern for using sensitive data as part of the build process. In fact, I have an SO question on this topic. You can use docker-squash to remove layers from an image. But there's no native functionality in Docker for this purpose.
You may find shykes comments on config in containers useful.
Our team avoids putting credentials in repositories, so that means they're not allowed in Dockerfile. Our best practice within applications is to use creds from environment variables.
We solve for this using docker-compose.
Within docker-compose.yml, you can specify a file that contains the environment variables for the container:
env_file:
- .env
Make sure to add .env to .gitignore, then set the credentials within the .env file like:
SOME_USERNAME=myUser
SOME_PWD_VAR=myPwd
Store the .env file locally or in a secure location where the rest of the team can grab it.
See: https://docs.docker.com/compose/environment-variables/#/the-env-file
Docker now (version 1.13 or 17.06 and higher) has support for managing secret information. Here's an overview and more detailed documentation
Similar feature exists in kubernetes and DCOS
You should never add credentials to a container unless you're OK broadcasting the creds to whomever can download the image. In particular, doing and ADD creds and later RUN rm creds is not secure because the creds file remains in the final image in an intermediate filesystem layer. It's easy for anyone with access to the image to extract it.
The typical solution I've seen when you need creds to checkout dependencies and such is to use one container to build another. I.e., typically you have some build environment in your base container and you need to invoke that to build your app container. So the simple solution is to add your app source and then RUN the build commands. This is insecure if you need creds in that RUN. Instead what you do is put your source into a local directory, run (as in docker run) the container to perform the build step with the local source directory mounted as volume and the creds either injected or mounted as another volume. Once the build step is complete you build your final container by simply ADDing the local source directory which now contains the built artifacts.
I'm hoping Docker adds some features to simplify all this!
Update: looks like the method going forward will be to have nested builds. In short, the dockerfile would describe a first container that is used to build the run-time environment and then a second nested container build that can assemble all the pieces into the final container. This way the build-time stuff isn't in the second container. This of a Java app where you need the JDK for building the app but only the JRE for running it. There are a number of proposals being discussed, best to start from https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/7115 and follow some of the links for alternate proposals.
An alternative to using environment variables, which can get messy if you have a lot of them, is to use volumes to make a directory on the host accessible in the container.
If you put all your credentials as files in that folder, then the container can read the files and use them as it pleases.
For example:
$ echo "secret" > /root/configs/password.txt
$ docker run -v /root/configs:/cfg ...
In the Docker container:
# echo Password is `cat /cfg/password.txt`
Password is secret
Many programs can read their credentials from a separate file, so this way you can just point the program to one of the files.
run-time only solution
docker-compose also provides a non-swarm mode solution (since v1.11:
Secrets using bind mounts).
The secrets are mounted as files below /run/secrets/ by docker-compose. This solves the problem at run-time (running the container), but not at build-time (building the image), because /run/secrets/ is not mounted at build-time. Furthermore this behavior depends on running the container with docker-compose.
Example:
Dockerfile
FROM alpine
CMD cat /run/secrets/password
docker-compose.yml
version: '3.1'
services:
app:
build: .
secrets:
- password
secrets:
password:
file: password.txt
To build, execute:
docker-compose up -d
Further reading:
mikesir87's blog - Using Docker Secrets during Development
My approach seems to work, but is probably naive. Tell me why it is wrong.
ARGs set during docker build are exposed by the history subcommand, so no go there. However, when running a container, environment variables given in the run command are available to the container, but are not part of the image.
So, in the Dockerfile, do setup that does not involve secret data. Set a CMD of something like /root/finish.sh. In the run command, use environmental variables to send secret data into the container. finish.sh uses the variables essentially to finish build tasks.
To make managing the secret data easier, put it into a file that is loaded by docker run with the --env-file switch. Of course, keep the file secret. .gitignore and such.
For me, finish.sh runs a Python program. It checks to make sure it hasn't run before, then finishes the setup (e.g., copies the database name into Django's settings.py).
There is a new docker command for "secrets" management. But that only works for swarm clusters.
docker service create
--name my-iis
--publish target=8000,port=8000
--secret src=homepage,target="\inetpub\wwwroot\index.html"
microsoft/iis:nanoserver
The issue 13490 "Secrets: write-up best practices, do's and don'ts, roadmap" just got a new update in Sept. 2020, from Sebastiaan van Stijn:
Build time secrets are now possible when using buildkit as builder; see the blog post "Build secrets and SSH forwarding in Docker 18.09", Nov. 2018, from Tõnis Tiigi.
The documentation is updated: "Build images with BuildKit"
The RUN --mount option used for secrets will graduate to the default (stable) Dockerfile syntax soon.
That last part is new (Sept. 2020)
New Docker Build secret information
The new --secret flag for docker build allows the user to pass secret information to be used in the Dockerfile for building docker images in a safe way that will not end up stored in the final image.
id is the identifier to pass into the docker build --secret.
This identifier is associated with the RUN --mount identifier to use in the Dockerfile.
Docker does not use the filename of where the secret is kept outside of the Dockerfile, since this may be sensitive information.
dst renames the secret file to a specific file in the Dockerfile RUN command to use.
For example, with a secret piece of information stored in a text file:
$ echo 'WARMACHINEROX' > mysecret.txt
And with a Dockerfile that specifies use of a BuildKit frontend docker/dockerfile:1.0-experimental, the secret can be accessed.
For example:
# syntax = docker/dockerfile:1.0-experimental
FROM alpine
# shows secret from default secret location:
RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret cat /run/secrets/mysecret
# shows secret from custom secret location:
RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret,dst=/foobar cat /foobar
This Dockerfile is only to demonstrate that the secret can be accessed. As you can see the secret printed in the build output. The final image built will not have the secret file:
$ docker build --no-cache --progress=plain --secret id=mysecret,src=mysecret.txt .
...
#8 [2/3] RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret cat /run/secrets/mysecret
#8 digest: sha256:5d8cbaeb66183993700828632bfbde246cae8feded11aad40e524f54ce7438d6
#8 name: "[2/3] RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret cat /run/secrets/mysecret"
#8 started: 2018-08-31 21:03:30.703550864 +0000 UTC
#8 1.081 WARMACHINEROX
#8 completed: 2018-08-31 21:03:32.051053831 +0000 UTC
#8 duration: 1.347502967s
#9 [3/3] RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret,dst=/foobar cat /foobar
#9 digest: sha256:6c7ebda4599ec6acb40358017e51ccb4c5471dc434573b9b7188143757459efa
#9 name: "[3/3] RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret,dst=/foobar cat /foobar"
#9 started: 2018-08-31 21:03:32.052880985 +0000 UTC
#9 1.216 WARMACHINEROX
#9 completed: 2018-08-31 21:03:33.523282118 +0000 UTC
#9 duration: 1.470401133s
...
The 12-Factor app methodology tells, that any configuration should be stored in environment variables.
Docker compose could do variable substitution in configuration, so that could be used to pass passwords from host to docker.
Starting from Version 20.10, besides using secret-file, you could also provide secrets directly with env.
buildkit: secrets: allow providing secrets with env moby/moby#41234 docker/cli#2656 moby/buildkit#1534
Support --secret id=foo,env=MY_ENV as an alternative for storing a secret value to a file.
--secret id=GIT_AUTH_TOKEN will load env if it exists and the file does not.
secret-file:
THIS IS SECRET
Dockerfile:
# syntax = docker/dockerfile:1.3
FROM python:3.8-slim-buster
COPY build-script.sh .
RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret ./build-script.sh
build-script.sh:
cat /run/secrets/mysecret
Execution:
$ export MYSECRET=theverysecretpassword
$ export DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1
$ docker build --progress=plain --secret id=mysecret,env=MYSECRET -t abc:1 . --no-cache
......
#9 [stage-0 3/3] RUN --mount=type=secret,id=mysecret ./build-script.sh
#9 sha256:e32137e3eeb0fe2e4b515862f4cd6df4b73019567ae0f49eb5896a10e3f7c94e
#9 0.931 theverysecretpassword#9 DONE 1.5s
......
With Docker v1.9 you can use the ARG instruction to fetch arguments passed by command line to the image on build action. Simply use the --build-arg flag. So you can avoid to keep explicit password (or other sensible information) on the Dockerfile and pass them on the fly.
source: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/build/ http://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#arg
Example:
Dockerfile
FROM busybox
ARG user
RUN echo "user is $user"
build image command
docker build --build-arg user=capuccino -t test_arguments -f path/to/dockerfile .
during the build it print
$ docker build --build-arg user=capuccino -t test_arguments -f ./test_args.Dockerfile .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 2.048 kB
Step 1 : FROM busybox
---> c51f86c28340
Step 2 : ARG user
---> Running in 43a4aa0e421d
---> f0359070fc8f
Removing intermediate container 43a4aa0e421d
Step 3 : RUN echo "user is $user"
---> Running in 4360fb10d46a
**user is capuccino**
---> 1408147c1cb9
Removing intermediate container 4360fb10d46a
Successfully built 1408147c1cb9
Hope it helps! Bye.
Something simply like this will work I guess if it is bash shell.
read -sp "db_password:" password | docker run -itd --name <container_name> --build-arg mysql_db_password=$db_password alpine /bin/bash
Simply read it silently and pass as argument in Docker image. You need to accept the variable as ARG in Dockerfile.
While I totally agree there is no simple solution. There continues to be a single point of failure. Either the dockerfile, etcd, and so on. Apcera has a plan that looks like sidekick - dual authentication. In other words two container cannot talk unless there is a Apcera configuration rule. In their demo the uid/pwd was in the clear and could not be reused until the admin configured the linkage. For this to work, however, it probably meant patching Docker or at least the network plugin (if there is such a thing).