Installing GD in Docker

I am a complete Docker novice but am having to maintain an existing system. The Dockerfile I am using is as below:

FROM php:5.6-apache

RUN docker-php-ext-install mysql mysqli

RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y sendmail

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y \
        zlib1g-dev 

RUN docker-php-ext-install mbstring

RUN docker-php-ext-install zip

RUN docker-php-ext-install gd

When I run 'docker build [sitename]' everything seems ok until I get the error:

configure: error: png.h not found.
The command '/bin/sh -c docker-php-ext-install gd' returned a non-zero code: 1

What is the cause of this error?

You should add the libpng-dev package to your Dockerfile:

FROM php:5.6-apache

RUN docker-php-ext-install mysql mysqli

RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y sendmail libpng-dev

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y \
        zlib1g-dev 

RUN docker-php-ext-install mbstring

RUN docker-php-ext-install zip

RUN docker-php-ext-install gd

Then go to directory with Dockerfile and run:

docker build -t sitename .

It worked in my case:

Removing intermediate container f03522715567
Successfully built 9d69212196a2

Let me know if you get any errors.

EDIT:

You should see something like this:

REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
sitename            latest              9d69212196a2        19 minutes ago      414 MB
<none>              <none>              b6c69576a359        25 minutes ago      412.3 MB

EDIT2:

Just to double check everything:

Please run the docker build command this way:

docker build -t sitename:1.0 .

(adding :1.0 should not change anything, I added it just to have additional row in docker images output)

Then start the container:

docker run --name sitename_test -p 80:80 sitename:1.0

It should work just fine.

I assumed that apache is using standard port (80) - maybe you need to adjust that. If you have other services/containers listening on port 80 you can make your container listening on other port:

docker run --name sitename_test -p 8080:80 sitename:1.0

That will redirect the traffic from port 8080 to port 80 "inside" the container.

Normally you run container in the background. To do this add the -d option to the docker run command (but for testing purposes you can omit -d to see output in the console).

If you decide to run container in the background you can check logs using docker logs sitename_test. To follow the logs (and see updates in logs) use -f option:

docker logs -f sitename_test

Hope that helps.

It is not the case of the OP, but I found that for those that are using php:7.4-fpm-alpine the syntax is a bit different

FROM php:7.4-fpm-alpine

# ... Other instructions ...

# Setup GD extension
RUN apk add --no-cache \
      freetype \
      libjpeg-turbo \
      libpng \
      freetype-dev \
      libjpeg-turbo-dev \
      libpng-dev \
    && docker-php-ext-configure gd \
      --with-freetype=/usr/include/ \
      # --with-png=/usr/include/ \ # No longer necessary as of 7.4; https://github.com/docker-library/php/pull/910#issuecomment-559383597
      --with-jpeg=/usr/include/ \
    && docker-php-ext-install -j$(nproc) gd \
    && docker-php-ext-enable gd \
    && apk del --no-cache \
      freetype-dev \
      libjpeg-turbo-dev \
      libpng-dev \
    && rm -rf /tmp/*

# ... Other instructions ...

This Dockerfile worked with Php7 https://hub.docker.com/r/giapnh/php7-gd

FROM php:7-fpm

RUN docker-php-ext-install mysqli pdo pdo_mysql
RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y libwebp-dev libjpeg62-turbo-dev libpng-dev libxpm-dev \
    libfreetype6-dev
RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y \
        zlib1g-dev 

RUN docker-php-ext-install mbstring

RUN apt-get install -y libzip-dev
RUN docker-php-ext-install zip

RUN docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-gd --with-webp-dir --with-jpeg-dir \
    --with-png-dir --with-zlib-dir --with-xpm-dir --with-freetype-dir \
    --enable-gd-native-ttf

RUN docker-php-ext-install gd

CMD ["php-fpm"]

EXPOSE 9000

This answer is too late, but it will help.

RUN apt-get update && \
apt-get install -y libfreetype6-dev libjpeg62-turbo-dev libpng-dev && \
docker-php-ext-configure gd --with-freetype=/usr/include/ --with-jpeg=/usr/include/ && \
docker-php-ext-install gd

Unfortunately, some php extensions have dependencies to other programs. There is a project called docker-php-extension-installer that you can use to install PHP extensions. It will make sure that the required dependencies are present as well.

Since I need that external script in multiple containers, I've put it in a shared script that I then include in the required Dockerfile.

Script (at .shared/scripts/install_php_extensions.sh)

#!/bin/sh

# add wget
apt-get update -yqq && apt-get -f install -yyq wget

# download helper script
wget -q -O /usr/local/bin/install-php-extensions https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlocati/docker-php-extension-installer/master/install-php-extensions \
    || (echo "Failed while downloading php extension installer!"; exit 1)

# install all required extensions
chmod uga+x /usr/local/bin/install-php-extensions && sync && install-php-extensions \
    gd \
;

Dockerfile

# get the scripts from the build context and make sure they are executable
COPY .shared/scripts/ /tmp/scripts/
RUN chmod +x -R /tmp/scripts/

# install extensions
RUN /tmp/scripts/install_php_extensions.sh

Caution: Make sure to use the correct build context in this case.