I've got a repo set up like this:
/config
config.json
/worker-a
Dockerfile
<symlink to config.json>
/code
/worker-b
Dockerfile
<symlink to config.json>
/code
However, building the images fails, because Docker can't handle the symlinks. I should mention my project is far more complicated than this, so restructuring directories isn't a great option. How do I deal with this situation?
Answer
Docker doesn't support symlinking files outside the build context.
Here are some different methods for using a shared file in a container:
Share a base image
Create a Dockerfile for the base worker-config image that includes the shared config/files.
COPY config.json /config.json
Build and tag the image as worker-config
docker build -t worker-config:latest .
Source the base worker-config image for all your worker Dockerfiles
FROM worker-config:latest
Build script
Use a script to push the common config to each of your worker containers.
./build worker-n
#!/bin/sh
set -uex
rundir=$(readlink -f "${0%/*}")
container=$(shift)
cd "$rundir/$container"
cp ../config/config.json ./config-docker.json
docker build "$@" .
Build from URL
Pull the config from a common URL for all worker-n builds.
ADD http://somehost/config.json /
Increase the scope of the image build context
Include the symlink target files in the build context by building from a parent directory that includes both the shared files and specific container files.
cd ..
docker build -f worker-a/Dockerfile .
All the source paths you reference in a Dockerfile must also change to match the new build context:
COPY workerathing /app
becomes
COPY worker-a/workerathing /app
Using this method can make all build contexts large if you have one large build context, as they all become shared. It can slow down builds, especially to remote Docker build servers.
Mount a config directory from a named volume
Volumes like this only work as directories, so you can't specify a file like you could when mounting a file from the host to container.
docker volume create --name=worker-cfg-vol
docker run -v worker-cfg-vol:/config worker-config cp config.json /config
docker run -v worker-cfg-vol:/config:/config worker-a
Mount config directory from data container
Again, directories only as it's basically the same as above. This will automatically copy files from the destination directory into the newly created shared volume though.
docker create --name wcc -v /config worker-config /bin/true
docker run --volumes-from wcc worker-a
Mount config file from host
docker run -v /app/config/config.json:/config.json worker-a