How to provide user defined argument and value in docker run? - docker

I want to achieve something like
docker run --delay=
I could provide the value for delay using ENTRYPOINT AND CMD without providing argument in docker run but could not find a way to do from docker run.
In short, I want to know how to pass user defined argument and value to docker run command or using dockerfile

You can achieve it using environment variable. There are two ways to set environment variable.
In Dockerfile -> You can set as follows. Detailed Explanation at https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/#env
ENV <key> = <value>
In docker run command -> You can set using -e flag. Detailed Explanation at https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/run/#set-environment-variables--e-env-env-file
docker run -e <key> = <value> <image_name>

There are multiple ways to do that but I would recommend to go with environment variables. Just define the variable while running docker run and use it in your ENTRYPOINT script.
docker run -e DELAY=30 IMAGE [COMMAND] [ARG...]
Afterward use it in your ENTRYPOINT script as:
!#/bin/bash
# Play with $DELAY
echo $DELAY
# Start the root process
exec root_process_command
I hope it help!

Related

How do I run the eval $(envkey-source) command in docker using Dockerfile?

I want to run a command, eval $(envkey-source) for setting certain environment variables using envkey. I install it, set my ENVKEY variable and then try to import all the environment variables. I do this all via Docker. However, docker is giving an error in this command:
Step 31/35 : RUN eval $(envkey-source)
---> Running in 6a9ebf1ede96
/bin/sh: 1: export: : bad variable name
The command '/bin/sh -c eval $(envkey-source)' returned a non-zero code: 2
I tried reading the documentation of envkey but they tell nothing about Docker.
I have installed envkey using following commands:
ENV ENVKEY=yada_yada
RUN curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envkey/envkey-source/master/install.sh | bash
Until here, all goes well. I get verbose of suggestions on the console about how to run the envkey to get all the environment variables set.
The problem comes on this side:
RUN eval $(envkey-source)
The error:
Step 31/35 : RUN eval $(envkey-source)
---> Running in 6a9ebf1ede96
/bin/sh: 1: export: : bad variable name
The command '/bin/sh -c eval $(envkey-source)' returned a non-zero code: 2
You can't do this, for a couple of reasons. The envkey documentation eventually links to an example in their GitHub which you might find informative.
Each Dockerfile RUN command runs a new shell in a new container. In particular, environment variables set within a RUN command are lost after it exits. Any form of RUN export ... is a no-op. If variables are static you can set them using the ENV directive, but in this case where you're running a program that needs to generate them dynamically, you need another approach.
A typical pattern here is to use a shell script as your container's ENTRYPOINT. That does some initial setup and then replaces itself with the container's CMD. Since the CMD runs in the same shell environment as the rest of the script, you can do dynamic variable setup here. The script might look like:
#!/bin/sh
eval "$(envkey-source)"
exec "$#"
The other thing to keep in mind here is that anyone can docker inspect your image and get its environment variables back out, or docker run imagename /usr/bin/env. If you could run envkey-source in the Dockerfile then the environment variables would be available in the image in clear text, which defeats the purpose. Even embedding the key in the image effectively leaks it. You should pass this at runtime using a docker run -e option or a Docker Compose environment: key, relaying it from the host's environment.

Delete environmental variable from docker image

I have looked around online and tried the obvious route (explained below) to remove an environmental variable from a docker image.
1 - I create a container from a modified ubuntu image using:
docker run -it --name my_container my_image
2 - I inspect the image and see the two environmental variables that I want to remove using:
docker inspect my_container
which yields:
...
"Env": [
"env_variable_1=abcdef",
"env_variable_2=ghijkl",
"env_variable_3=mnopqr",
...
3 - I exec into the container and remove the environmental variables via:
docker exec -it my_container bash
unset env_variable_1
unset env_variable_2
4 - I check to make sure the specified variables are gone:
docker inspect my_container
which yields:
...
"Env": [
"env_variable_3=mnopqr",
...
5 - I then commit this modified container as an image via:
docker commit my_container my_new_image
6 - And check for the presence of the deleted environmental variables via:
docker run -it --name my_new_container my_new_image
docker inspect my_new_container
which yields (drumroll please):
...
"Env": [
"env_variable_1=abcdef",
"env_variable_2=ghijkl",
"env_variable_3=mnopqr",
...
AKA the deleted variables are not carried through from the modified container to the new image in the docker commit
What am I missing out on here? Is unset really deleting the variables? Should I use another method to remove these environmental variables or another/modified method to commit the container as an image?
PS: I've confirmed the variables first exist when inside the container via env. I then confirmed they were not active using the same method after using unset my_variable
Thanks for your help!
You need to edit the Dockerfile that built the original image. The Dockerfile ENV directive has a couple of different syntaxes to set variables but none to unset them. docker run -e and the Docker Compose environment: setting can't do this either. This is not an especially common use case.
Depending on what you need, it may be enough to set the variables to an empty value, though this is technically different.
FROM my_image
ENV env_variable_1=""
RUN test -z "$env_variable_1" && echo variable 1 is empty
RUN echo variable 1 is ${env_variable_1:-empty}
RUN echo variable 1 is ${env_variable_1-unset}
# on first build will print out "empty", "empty", and nothing
The big hammer is to use an entrypoint script to unset the variable. The script would look like:
#!/bin/sh
unset env_variable_1 env_variable_2
exec "$#"
It would be paired with a Dockerfile like:
FROM my_image
COPY entrypoint.sh /
RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh
ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]
CMD ["same", "as", "before"]
docker inspect would still show the variable as set (because it is in the container metadata) but something like ps e that shows the container process's actual environment will show it unset.
As a general rule you should always use the docker build system to create an image, and never use docker commit. ("A modified Ubuntu image" isn't actually a reproducible recipe for debugging things or asking for help, or for rebuilding it when a critical security patch appears in six months.) docker inspect isn't intrinsically harmful but has an awful lot of useless information; I rarely have reason to use it.
Maybe you can try with this way, as in this answer:
docker exec -it -e env_variable_1 my_container bash
And then commit the container as usual.
I personally was looking to remove all environment variables to have a fresh image but without losing the contents inside the image.
The problem was that when i reused this image and reset those environment variables with new values, they were not changed, the old values were still present.
My solution was to reinitialize the image with docker export and then docker import.
Export
First, spin up a container with the image, then export the container to a tarball
docker export {container_name} > my_image.tar
Import
Import the tarball to a new image
docker import my_image.tar my_image_tag:latest
Doing this will reset the image, meaning only the contents of the container will remain.
All layers, environment variables, entrypoint, and command data will be gone.

Pass ENV in docker run command

Is there a way we can pass a variable lets say in this example I want to pass a list of animals into an entrypoint.sh file using ENV animals="turtle, monkey, goose"
But I want to be able to pass different animals when running the container for example docker run -t image animals="mouse,rat,kangaroo"
How do you go about passing arguments when running the docker run command?
The goal is to take that variable when using the docker run command and insert them into that entrypoint.sh file
Right now i hard code that in my Dockerfile. But i want to be able to do this when running the docker run command so I dont always have to change the Dockerfile.
FROM anapsix/alpine-java:8u121b13_jdk
ENV FILE_NAME="file_to_run.zip"
ENV animals="turtle, monkey, goose"
ADD ${FILE_NAME} .
RUN echo "${FILENAME} ${animals}" > ./entrypoint.sh
CMD [ "/bin/ash", "./entrypoint.sh" ]
It looks like you might be confusing the image build with the container run. If the difference between the two isn't immediately clear, I'd recommend reviewing some other questions and docs like:
In Docker, what's the difference between a container and an image?
https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/dockerfile_best-practices/
RUN echo "${FILENAME} ${animals}" > ./entrypoint.sh
With the above, the variables will be expanded during the image build. The entrypoint.sh will not contain ${FILENAME} ${animals}. Instead, it will contain
file_to_run.zip turtle, monkey, goose
After the build, the docker run command will create a container from that image and run the above script with the environment variables defined but never used since the script already has the variables expanded. To prevent the variable expansion, you need to escape the $ or use single quotes to prevent the expansion, e.g.
RUN echo "\${FILENAME} \${animals}" > ./entrypoint.sh
or
RUN echo '${FILENAME} ${animals}' > ./entrypoint.sh
I would also recommend being explicit with a #!/bin/ash at the top of this script. Then when you run the script, do not override the command with parameters after the image name. Instead set the environment variables with the appropriate flag to run:
docker run -it -e animals="mouse,rat,kangaroo" image
Simplest way, forward individual variables:
docker run ... --env animals="turtle, monkey, goose" --env FILE_NAME="file_to_run.zip"
Forward several variables using file:
Or if you need to grab all your environment variables from outside, you can do something like this first:
printenv | grep -E 'animals|FILE_NAME' > my-env
The grep is because Docker doesn't like some variables, e.g. with spaces in them, which you might possibly have in your real environment.
Then use that file in your Docker command:
docker run ... --env-file ./my-env
The latter is also useful if you want to avoid sending environment variables to logs (like for sensitive variables). I use this approach in a CI/CD pipeline that runs some scripts.
Using variables inside Docker:
With either approach, the environment variables actually become available to scripts running inside the container to use.
#BMitch's answer has more complete details about how to achieve this in your case, where you have related logic in both build and execution.
Reference
See docs here.

How to pass an argument to supervisord in docker?

I am running two python services inside docker. Both services require a common argument, which I provide during "docker run"
Currently, I am achieving this by calling both the services from a shell script. But, I think the proper solution would be using supervisor inside docker and run both the services through it.
I want to achieve something like this:
[program:A]
command=python -m A.py <argument>
[program:B]
command=python -m B.py <argument>
The dockerfile looks like this:
COPY supervisord.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/supervisord.conf
CMD ["/usr/bin/supervisord"]
How can I pass the argument to supervisor?
You could use an environment variable: from supervisor doc
Environment variables that are present in the environment at the time that supervisord is started can be used in the configuration file using the Python string expression syntax %(ENV_X)s:
[program:example]
command=/usr/bin/example --loglevel=%(ENV_LOGLEVEL)s
In the example above, the expression %(ENV_LOGLEVEL)s would be expanded to the value of the environment variable LOGLEVEL.
In your case, your common argument could be set in an environment variable passed to the container with a docker run -d -e "COMMON_ARG=myarg".

Docker echo environment variable

I'm trying to write a little docker file that sets a User and just echos the current user as a little example to prove to myself it is working. I've tried a number of variants and couldn't find much help in the documentation.
FROM ubuntu
USER daemon
# ENTRYPOINT ["echo", "$USER"]
# just gives "$USER"
# ENTRYPOINT ["echo", "-e", "${USER}"]
# just gives "$USER"
# ENTRYPOINT echo $USER
# gives empty string
# ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/echo", "$USER"]
# just gives "$USER"
I'm running docker build . on the dockerfile and then running docker run <image-id> and getting the results
Expected result is daemon, or without the USER daemon line, I expect root. Probably a really simple answer.
This is the expected behavior, as weird as it seems!
When ENTRYPOINT is a list (as in ENTRYPOINT ["echo", "$USER"]), it is used as-is, without further parsing or interpretation. So $USER remains $USER, because there is no shell involved in the process to replace it with the value of the USER environment variable.
Now, when ENTRYPOINT is a string (as in ENTRYPOINT echo $USER), what is actually executed is sh -c "echo $USER", and $USER is replaced with the value of the environment variable (as you would expect).
However, the environment variable USER is not set by default. It is set by the login process; and when you just run sh -c ... the login process is not involved.
Compare the environment when running docker run -t -i ubuntu bash and docker run -t -i ubuntu login -f root. In the former case, you will get a very basic environment; in the latter case, you will get the complete environment that you are used to (including USERvariable).
Couldn't you set, in the Dockerfile, the ENV command to a default value, and then, when run-ning a container, use the -e, --env dictionary to override what would be interpreted by the:
ENTRYPOINT echo $SOMEENVVAR
form of ENTRYPOINT?
I think there´s a series of issues here.
when I
docker run -i -t ubuntu /bin/bash
echo $USER
set
I don´t see $USER set at all - whoami does report daemon though.
additionally, I have the suspicion (but have not looked at the code yet) that ENV vars in the Dockerfile are escaped, to avoid their use (many people assume that they can export host variables to the built container, but this is something that the docker guys would like to avoid)

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