Docker run vs build - build gstreamer Different behaviour - docker

Question

I'm trying to build a docker image that uses nvidia hardware decoding in gstreamer and have encountered a strange problem with making the image.
The build process does not find the nvidia cuda related stuff while running docker build (or nvidia-docker build), but when I spin up the failed image as a container and do those very same steps from within the container everything works. I even saved the container as image which gave me a persistent image that works as intended.
Has anyone experienced similar problem and can shed some light on it?
Dockerfile:
FROM nvcr.io/nvidia/deepstream:3.0-18.11 AS base
ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND noninteractive
#install some dependencies. NOTE - not removing apt cache for the MWE
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
build-essential \
libdc1394-22 \
tmux \
vim \
libjpeg-dev \
libpng-dev \
libpng12-dev \
cuda-toolkit-10-0 \
python3-setuptools \
python3-pip ninja-build pkg-config gobject-introspection gnome-devel bison flex libgirepository1.0-dev liborc-0.4-dev
RUN pip3 install meson && ldconfig
FROM base
#pull and make gstreamer:
RUN cd /tmp && mkdir gstreamer
RUN git clone https://github.com/GStreamer/gst-build.git /tmp/gstreamer \
&& cd /tmp/gstreamer \
&& git checkout tags/1.16.0 \
&& ./setup.py -Dgtk_doc=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvdec=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvenc=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:iqa=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:bluez=disabled --reconfigure \
&& ninja -C build \
&& ninja install -C build
Testing:
build and run the container. Inside the container:
$ gst-inspect-1.0 nvdec
No such element or plugin 'nvdec'
$ cd /tmp/gstreamer
$ ./setup.py -Dgtk_doc=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvdec=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvenc=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:iqa=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:bluez=disabled --reconfigure
$ ninja -C build
$ ninja install -C build
$ gst-inspect-1.0 nvdec
Factory Details:
Rank primary (256)
[... all plugin parameters show up]
GObject
+----GInitiallyUnowned
+----GstObject
+----GstElement
+----GstVideoDecoder
+----GstNvDec
EDIT1
The image builds with no errors, only when I try to call gstreamer it is built with no acceleration. I noticed that in the build process the major difference is
meson.build:109:2: Exception: Problem encountered: The nvdec plugin was enabled explicitly, but required CUDA dependencies were not found.
which does not happen when building from within the container.
Lack of error is related, most likely, to the ninja+meson build system which looks for compatible packages, reports the exception, but doesn't throw it and continues as if nothing wrong happened
EDIT2
Answering comment:
To build it and get the error, just build the attached docker image:
sudo docker build -t gst16:latest . > build.log
This will dump all the output into the build.log file.
I don't have a docker registry that I could use for this and the docker image gets quite big by docker standards (~8 Gigs), but to produce successfully, it's fairly simple:
sudo docker run --runtime="nvidia" -ti gst16:latest /bin/bash
or
sudo nvidia-docker run -ti gst16:latest /bin/bash
which seems to work the same for me. Notice no --rm flag! From within the container:
#check if nvidia decoder plugin is there:
gst-inspect-1.0 nvdec
#fail!
#now build it from within:
cd /opt/gstreamer
./setup.py -Dgtk_doc=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvdec=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:nvenc=enabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:iqa=disabled -Dgst-plugins-bad:bluez=disabled --reconfigure
ninja -C build
ninja install -C build
gst-inspect-1.0 nvdec
#success reported
Now to get the image, exit the container (ctrl+d) and in the host shell:
sudo docker container ls -a to view all containers including stopped ones
from gst16:latest get the CONTAINER_ID and copy it
sudo docker commit <CONTAINER_ID> gst16:manual and after a few seconds you should have the container saved as an image. Verify with sudo docker images
run the new image with sudo docker run --runtime=`nvidia` --rm -ti gst16:manual /bin/bash
from within the container try again the gst-inspect-1.0 nvdec to verify it's working
EDIT3
$ nvidia-docker --version
Docker version 18.09.0, build 4d60db4

Answer 1

I think I found the solution/reason
Writing it here in case someone finds themselves in similar situation, plus I hate finding old threads with similar problem and no answer or "nevermind, I solved it" as the only follow up
Docker build does not have any ties to nvidia runtime and gstreamer requires access to the full nvidia toolchain in order to build the plugins that need it. This is to be resolved with gstreamer 1.18 but until then, there is no way to build gstreamer with nvidia codecs in docker build.
The workaround:
Build image with all dependencies.
Run a container of said image using runtime="nvidia" but don't use --rm flag
In the container, build gstreamer and install it as normally.
Verify with gst-inspect-1.0
Commit the container as new image: docker commit <container_name> <temporary_image_name>
Tag the temporary image properly.