Create an independent docker image from a dependent image - docker

I have a docker image that has 13 set of modifications since its creation. For each set of modification, a new image has been created. Thus there are currently 13 image versions with the 13th one being the newest. Also, each image is dependent on the previous version. In short, the 13th version has a dependency that has recursive dependencies. How to create an complete independent image from 13th version ?
More abstractly, How to generate an independent docker image from an image that has recursive dependencies ?
I checked the answere here but it doesn't answer my question

There are a couple of things to try:
Try to squash your image
Squash newly built layers into a single new layer
use multi-stage builds
With multi-stage builds, you use multiple FROM statements in your
Dockerfile. Each FROM instruction can use a different base, and each
of them begins a new stage of the build. You can selectively copy
artifacts from one stage to another, leaving behind everything you
don’t want in the final image.

Related

How to list all files from the build context that affect the contents of the image?

Is it possible to list all files that get copied into the image from the build context, or affect the final contents of the image in any other way?
I need this for dependency tracking; I am sculpting a build system for a project that involves building multiple images and running containers from them in the local dev environment. I need this to be optimized for rapid code-build-debug cycle, and therefore I need to be able to avoid invoking docker build as tightly as possible. Knowing the exact set of files in the build context that end up affecting the image will allow me to specify those as tracked dependencies for the build step that invokes docker build, and avoid unnecessary rebuilds.
I don't need to have this filelist generated in advance, though that is prefereable. If no tool exists to generate it in advance, but there is a way to obtain it from a built image, then that's OK too; the build tool I use is capable of recording dynamic dependencies discovered by a post-build step.
Things that I am acutely aware of, and I still make an informed decision that pursuing this avenue is worthwile:
I know that the number of dependencies thus tracked can be huge-ish. I believe the build tool can handle it.
I know that there are other kinds of dependencies for a docker image besides files in the build context. This is solved by also tracking those dependencies outside of docker build. Unlike files from the build context, those dependencies are either much fewer in number (i.e. files that the Dockerfile's RUN commands explicitly fetch from the internet), or the problem of obtaining an exhaustive list of such dependencies is already solved (e.g. dependencies obtained using a package manager like apt-get are modeled separately, and the installing RUNs are generated into the Dockerfile from the model).
Nothing is copied to the image unless you specifically say so. So, check your Dockerfile for COPY statements and you will know what files from the build context are added to the image.
Notice that, in the event you have a COPY . ., you might have a .dockerignore file in the build context with files you don't want to copy.
I don't think what's you're looking for would be useful even if it was possible. A list of all files in the previously built image wouldn't factor in new files, and it would be difficult to differentiate new files that affect the build from new files that would be ignored.
It's possible that you could parse the Dockerfile, extract every COPY and ADD command, run the current files through a hashing process to identify if they changed from the hash in the image history (you would need to match docker's hashing algorithm which includes details like file ownership and permissions), and then when that hash doesn't match you would know the build needs to run again. You could look at creating a custom buildkit syntax parser, or reuse the low level buildkit code to build your own context processor.
But before you spend too much time trying to implement the above code, realize that it already exists, as docker build. Rather than trying to avoid running a build, I'd focus on getting the build to utilize the build cache so new builds skip all unchanged steps, possibly generating the exact same image id.

Docker image size doesn’t make sense

I’ve created a ubuntu:bionic base image on my computer. Originally super large size but I deleted 80% of the content by running container and then committing. If I got to root directory and do “du -sh”, it said disk usage 4.5GB. Curious enough, the size of docker image when I do "docker images’ show 11 GB. After pushing to docker hub, I see that it’s 3.34 GB. So I thought perhaps it cleaned up something before compressing? I ran the new image, deleted some more content, commit, and pushed again. This time, “du–sh” said 3.0 GB, “docker images” still said 11GB and docker hub also 3.34 GB. Clearly it is compressing the 11GB file and not the 3.0GB content I’m expecting. Is there a easy way to “clean up” the image?
Docker images are built from layers. When you add a new layer, it doesn't remove the previous layers, it just adds a new one, rather like a new Git commit—the history is still there.
That means when you deleted the content, you made it invisible but it's still there in earlier layers.
You can see the layers and their sizes with docker history yourimagename.
Your options:
Make sure files you don't need don't make it in the first place, e.g. with .dockerignore.
Use a multi-stage build to create new image from the old one with only the files you need. https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage-build/

Outsource source code in docker-compose to use minimal disk space

I am using docker successfully in dev environment and want to use it now at staging and prod too.
I am developing a web application with symfony where the code is mounted local to the docker container. For staging and prod i want to "bake" the source code to the image, cause theres no need to change it anymore at this time.
At the moment my services "php" and "nginx" needs access to the src files. For staging/prod i would create a extra volume called "src" and mount it to both services. In one of the services (nginx/php) i would add a COPY command to copy the src code on build to the mounted "src" volume.
The problem now is the following:
Whenever a new version of my code exist, the whole image have to build new ... the smallest image (nginx) has a size of 200MB. So every time i want to update only my code (size just 10MB) the whole container (200MB) has to build new ...
In addition i want to check in all builds into a repository.
That is quite expensive with time ...
My thought is the following:
Is it possible to only build the data volume "src" new on each code update (triggered trough a jenkins build job) and check them in?
I think, there is no need to build rarely changed environments like php/nginx/mysql new on every build ...
Or is there another approach?
Initially having 1,5GB for all needed services is quite ok, But having for each version another 200 MB in the repository is too heavy.
Thanks
First the approach you are following is definitely a bad practice. A docker container should be portable and self-contained. Relying on data volumes that are bounded to the host machine will make your container not portable.
By design containers should package all of the dependencies needed to run the application. You should thus add the source to each image if the source code is a dependency that must be provided.
You should investigate other options to make the image size smaller. Depending on the programming language you are using, it is possible to compile/compress the source code and have a smaller binary for instance that can be copied into the image.
One final note is that using very different appraoches to deploy between environment(dev/staging/prod) is usually a bad idea. It is much preferable to have similar deployment strategies to avoid unexpected errors.
If you set up your Dockerfile properly (see docs) so you are adding the code last, it should be a pretty quick operation to update as all the other unchanged layers will be cached. This is pretty common practice as part of a Docker workflow.
You can use this same image for your local development and mount your working code over the code in the container for active development. As long as that exact same code is used to rebuild your images, you should maintain consistency. You could optimize further by choosing which parts of your code are likely to change and order your build accordingly.
You may also want to look into multi-stage build process where you can further optimize your base image and reduce final image size.

what are the advantages of having layers in a docker image?

Let's say I have two different Dockerfiles.
Image one called nudoc/my-base-image:1.1
FROM ubuntu:16.10
COPY . /test.war
Image two called nudoc/my-testrun-image:1.1
FROM acme/my-base-image:1.1
CMD /test/start.sh
Both have the layers in common.
What are the advantages of having layers in a docker image? does it benefit from pulling from the registry?
As Henry already stated
Common layers are downloaded only once and are stored only once. So this has benefits for download as well as storage.
Additionaly building an image will reuse layers if the creating command allows. This reduces the build time. For example if you copy a file into your image and the file is the same as in the last build the old layer will be reused. See the best practices for writing dockerfiles for more details.
Common layers are downloaded only once and are stored only once. So this has benefits for download as well as storage.
A layer will be downloaded once, and possibly reused for other images. You can see them as intermediate images, and those intermediate images are combined together to create a bigger one.
In continuous integration, this can save quite some time !
I suggest you read the official documentation page: https://docs.docker.com/engine/userguide/storagedriver/imagesandcontainers/
Docker uses aufs file system as default where each instruction defined in your Dockerfile will acts as a each individual layer, if you add or update an instruction it will effect the respective layer hence it helps you to build, reuse or update your Docker image instantly, to learn more about layers and image read here

Dockerfile vs Docker image

I'm working on creating some docker images to be used for testing on dev machines. I plan to build one for our main app as well as one for each of our external dependencies (postgres, elasticsearch, etc). For the main app, I'm struggling with the decision of writing a Dockerfile or compiling an image to be hosted.
On one hand, a Dockerfile is easy to share and modify over time. On the other hand, I expect that advanced configuration (customizing application property files) will be much easier to do in vim before simply committing an new image.
I understand that I can get to the same result either way, but I'm looking for PROS, CONS, and gotchas with either direction.
As a side note, I plan on wrapping this all together using Fig. My initial impression of this tool has been very positive.
Thanks!
Using a Dockerfile:
You have an 'audit log' that describes how the image is built. For me this is fundamental if it is going to be used in a production pipeline where more people are working and maintainability should be a priority.
You can automate the building process of your image, being an easy way of updating the container with system updates, or if it has to take part in a continuous delivery pipeline.
It is a cleaner way of create the layers of your container (each Dockerfile command is a different layer)
Changing a container and committing the changes is great for testing purposes and for fast development for a conceptual test. But if you plan to use the result image for some time, I would definitely use Dockerfiles.
Apart from this, if you have to modify a file and doing it using bash tools (awk, sed...) results very tedious, you can add any file you wish from outside during the building process.
I totally agree with Javier but you need to understand that one image created with a dockerfile can be different with an image build with the same version of the dockerfile 1 day after.
maybe in your build process you retrieve automatically last updates of an app or the os etc …
And at this time if you need to reproduce a crash or whatever you can’t rely on the dockerfile.

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