Dockerfile if else condition with external arguments
DockerDockerfileDocker Problem Overview
I have dockerfile
FROM centos:7
ENV foo=42
then I build it
docker build -t my_docker .
and run it.
docker run -it -d my_docker
Is it possible to pass arguments from command line and use it with if else in Dockerfile? I mean something like
FROM centos:7
if (my_arg==42)
{ENV=TRUE}
else:
{ENV=FALSE}
and build with this argument.
docker build -t my_docker . --my_arg=42
Docker Solutions
Solution 1 - Docker
It might not look that clean but you can have your Dockerfile (conditional) as follow:
FROM centos:7
ARG arg
RUN if [[ -z "$arg" ]] ; then echo Argument not provided ; else echo Argument is $arg ; fi
and then build the image as:
docker build -t my_docker . --build-arg arg=45
or
docker build -t my_docker .
Solution 2 - Docker
There is an interesting alternative to the proposed solutions, that works with a single Dockerfile, require only a single call to docker build per conditional build and avoids bash.
Solution:
The following Dockerfile solves that problem. Copy-paste it and try it yourself.
ARG my_arg
FROM centos:7 AS base
RUN echo "do stuff with the centos image"
FROM base AS branch-version-1
RUN echo "this is the stage that sets VAR=TRUE"
ENV VAR=TRUE
FROM base AS branch-version-2
RUN echo "this is the stage that sets VAR=FALSE"
ENV VAR=FALSE
FROM branch-version-${my_arg} AS final
RUN echo "VAR is equal to ${VAR}"
Explanation of Dockerfile:
We first get a base image (centos:7 in your case) and put it into its own stage. The base stage should contain things that you want to do before the condition. After that, we have two more stages, representing the branches of our condition: branch-version-1 and branch-version-2. We build both of them. The final stage than chooses one of these stages, based on my_arg. Conditional Dockerfile. There you go.
Output when running:
(I abbreviated this a little...)
my_arg==2
docker build --build-arg my_arg=2 .
Step 1/12 : ARG my_arg
Step 2/12 : ARG ENV
Step 3/12 : FROM centos:7 AS base
Step 4/12 : RUN echo "do stuff with the centos image"
do stuff with the centos image
Step 5/12 : FROM base AS branch-version-1
Step 6/12 : RUN echo "this is the stage that sets VAR=TRUE"
this is the stage that sets VAR=TRUE
Step 7/12 : ENV VAR=TRUE
Step 8/12 : FROM base AS branch-version-2
Step 9/12 : RUN echo "this is the stage that sets VAR=FALSE"
this is the stage that sets VAR=FALSE
Step 10/12 : ENV VAR=FALSE
Step 11/12 : FROM branch-version-${my_arg}
Step 12/12 : RUN echo "VAR is equal to ${VAR}"
VAR is equal to FALSE
my_arg==1
docker build --build-arg my_arg=1 .
...
Step 11/12 : FROM branch-version-${my_arg}
Step 12/12 : RUN echo "VAR is equal to ${VAR}"
VAR is equal to TRUE
Solution 3 - Docker
Do not use build args described in other answers where at all possible. This is an old messy solution. Docker's target property solves for this issue.
Target Example
Dockerfile
FROM foo as base
RUN ...
# Build dev image
FROM base as image-dev
RUN ...
COPY ...
# Build prod image
FROM base as image-prod
RUN ...
COPY ...
docker build --target image-dev -t foo .
version: '3.4'
services:
dev:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
target: image-dev
Real World
Dockerfiles get complex in the real world. Use buildkit & COPY --from for faster, more maintainable Dockerfiles:
- Docker builds every stage above the target, regardless of whether it is inherited or not. Use buildkit to build only inherited stages. Docker must by v19+. Hopefully this will be a default feature soon.
- Targets may share build stages. Use
COPY --fromto simplify inheritance.
FROM foo as base
RUN ...
WORKDIR /opt/my-proj
FROM base as npm-ci-dev
# invalidate cache
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data ./package.json /opt/my-proj/package.json
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data ./package-lock.json /opt/my-proj/package-lock.json
RUN npm ci
FROM base as npm-ci-prod
# invalidate cache
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data ./package.json /opt/my-proj/package.json
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data ./package-lock.json /opt/my-proj/package-lock.json
RUN npm ci --only=prod
FROM base as proj-files
COPY --chown=www-data:www-data ./ /opt/my-proj
FROM base as image-dev
# Will mount, not copy in dev environment
RUN ...
FROM base as image-ci
COPY --from=npm-ci-dev /opt/my-proj .
COPY --from=proj-files /opt/my-proj .
RUN ...
FROM base as image-stage
COPY --from=npm-ci-prod /opt/my-proj .
COPY --from=proj-files /opt/my-proj .
RUN ...
FROM base as image-prod
COPY --from=npm-ci-prod /opt/my-proj .
COPY --from=proj-files /opt/my-proj .
RUN ...
Enable experimental mode.
sudo echo '{"experimental": true}' | sudo tee /etc/docker/daemon.json
Build with buildkit enabled. Buildkit builds without cache by default - enable with --build-arg BUILDKIT_INLINE_CACHE=1
CI build job.
DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 \
docker build \
--build-arg BUILDKIT_INLINE_CACHE=1 \
--target image-ci\
-t foo:ci
.
Use cache from a pulled image with --cache-from
Prod build job
docker pull foo:ci
docker pull foo:stage
DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 \
docker build \
--cache-from foo:ci,foo:stage \
--target image-dev \
-t prod
.
Solution 4 - Docker
From some reason most of the answers here didn't help me (maybe it's related to my FROM image in the Dockerfile)
So I preferred to create a bash script in my workspace combined with --build-arg in order to handle if statement while Docker build by checking if the argument is empty or not
Bash script:
#!/bin/bash -x
if test -z $1 ; then
echo "The arg is empty"
....do something....
else
echo "The arg is not empty: $1"
....do something else....
fi
Dockerfile:
FROM ...
....
ARG arg
COPY bash.sh /tmp/
RUN chmod u+x /tmp/bash.sh && /tmp/bash.sh $arg
....
Docker Build:
docker build --pull -f "Dockerfile" -t $SERVICE_NAME --build-arg arg="yes" .
Remark: This will go to the else (false) in the bash script
docker build --pull -f "Dockerfile" -t $SERVICE_NAME .
Remark: This will go to the if (true)
Edit 1:
After several tries I have found the following article and this one which helped me to understand 2 things:
-
ARG before FROM is outside of the build
-
The default shell is /bin/sh which means that the if else is working a little bit different in the docker build. for example you need only one "=" instead of "==" to compare strings.
So you can do this inside the Dockerfile
ARG argname=false #default argument when not provided in the --build-arg
RUN if [ "$argname" = "false" ] ; then echo 'false'; else echo 'true'; fi
and in the docker build:
docker build --pull -f "Dockerfile" --label "service_name=${SERVICE_NAME}" -t $SERVICE_NAME --build-arg argname=true .
Solution 5 - Docker
Just use the "test" binary directly to do this. You also should use the noop command ":" if you don't want to specify an "else" condition, so docker does not stop with a non zero return value error.
RUN test -z "$YOURVAR" || echo "var is set" && echo "var is not set"
RUN test -z "$YOURVAR" && echo "var is not set" || :
RUN test -z "$YOURVAR" || echo "var is set" && :
Solution 6 - Docker
The accepted answer may solve the question, but if you want multiline if conditions in the dockerfile, you can do that placing \ at the end of each line (similar to how you would do in a shell script) and ending each command with ;. You can even define someting like set -eux as the 1st command.
Example:
RUN set -eux; \
if [ -f /path/to/file ]; then \
mv /path/to/file /dest; \
fi; \
if [ -d /path/to/dir ]; then \
mv /path/to/dir /dest; \
fi
In your case:
FROM centos:7
ARG arg
RUN if [ -z "$arg" ] ; then \
echo Argument not provided; \
else \
echo Argument is $arg; \
fi
Then build with:
docker build -t my_docker . --build-arg arg=42
Solution 7 - Docker
According to the doc for the docker build command, there is a parameter called --build-arg.
Example usage:
docker build --build-arg HTTP_PROXY=http://10.20.30.2:1234 .
IMO it's what you need :)
Solution 8 - Docker
Exactly as others told, shell script would help.
Just an additional case, IMHO it's worth mentioning (for someone else who stumble upon here, looking for an easier case), that is Environment replacement.
> Environment variables (declared with the ENV statement) can also be used in certain instructions as variables to be interpreted by the Dockerfile.
>
> The ${variable_name} syntax also supports a few of the standard bash modifiers as specified below:
>
> - ${variable:-word} indicates that if variable is set then the result will be that value. If variable is not set then word will be the result.
>
> - ${variable:+word} indicates that if variable is set then word will be the result, otherwise the result is the empty string.
Solution 9 - Docker
Using Bash script and Alpine/Centos
Dockerfile
FROM alpine #just change this to centos
ARG MYARG=""
ENV E_MYARG=$MYARG
ADD . /tmp
RUN chmod +x /tmp/script.sh && /tmp/script.sh
script.sh
#!/usr/bin/env sh
if [ -z "$E_MYARG" ]; then
echo "NO PARAM PASSED"
else
echo $E_MYARG
fi
Passing arg:
docker build -t test --build-arg MYARG="this is a test" .
....
Step 5/5 : RUN chmod +x /tmp/script.sh && /tmp/script.sh
---> Running in 10b0e07e33fc
this is a test
Removing intermediate container 10b0e07e33fc
---> f6f085ffb284
Successfully built f6f085ffb284
Without arg:
docker build -t test .
....
Step 5/5 : RUN chmod +x /tmp/script.sh && /tmp/script.sh
---> Running in b89210b0cac0
NO PARAM PASSED
Removing intermediate container b89210b0cac0
....
Solution 10 - Docker
I had a similar issue for setting proxy server on a container.
The solution I'm using is an entrypoint script, and another script for environment variables configuration. Using RUN, you assure the configuration script runs on build, and ENTRYPOINT when you run the container.
--build-arg is used on command line to set proxy user and password.
As I need the same environment variables on container startup, I used a file to "persist" it from build to run.
The entrypoint script looks like:
#!/bin/bash
# Load the script of environment variables
. /root/configproxy.sh
# Run the main container command
exec "$@"
configproxy.sh
#!/bin/bash
function start_config {
read u p < /root/proxy_credentials
export HTTP_PROXY=http://$u:$p@proxy.com:8080
export HTTPS_PROXY=https://$u:$p@proxy.com:8080
/bin/cat <<EOF > /etc/apt/apt.conf
Acquire::http::proxy "http://$u:[email protected]:8080";
Acquire::https::proxy "https://$u:[email protected]:8080";
EOF
}
if [ -s "/root/proxy_credentials" ]
then
start_config
fi
And in the Dockerfile, configure:
# Base Image
FROM ubuntu:18.04
ARG user
ARG pass
USER root
# -z the length of STRING is zero
# [] are an alias for test command
# if $user is not empty, write credentials file
RUN if [ ! -z "$user" ]; then echo "${user} ${pass}">/root/proxy_credentials ; fi
#copy bash scripts
COPY configproxy.sh /root
COPY startup.sh .
RUN ["/bin/bash", "-c", ". /root/configproxy.sh"]
# Install dependencies and tools
#RUN apt-get update -y && \
# apt-get install -yqq --no-install-recommends \
# vim iputils-ping
ENTRYPOINT ["./startup.sh"]
CMD ["sh", "-c", "bash"]
Build without proxy settings
docker build -t img01 -f Dockerfile .
Build with proxy settings
docker build -t img01 --build-arg user=<USER> --build-arg pass=<PASS> -f Dockerfile .
Take a look here.