Appending to PATH in a Windows Docker container

docker containers windows-container
macetw picture macetw · Feb 7, 2017 · Viewed 22.5k times · Source

I need to append to the PATH within a Windows Docker container, and I've tried many permutations.

ENV PATH=%PATH%;C:\\Foo\\bin
ENV PATH=$PATH;C:\\Foo\\bin
ENV PATH="%PATH%;C:\Foo\bin"
ENV PATH="$PATH;C:\Foo\bin"
RUN "set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Foo\bin"

None of these work: they don't evaluate the preexisting PATH variable.

What is the right syntax to append to the PATH? Can I even append to the PATH inside Docker? (I can on similar Linux containers)

Answer

mirsik picture mirsik · Mar 29, 2018

Unfortunately ENV won't work, because windows environment variable work a little differently than linux. more info

As of now the only way to do this is through RUN

But you don't need to create a separate file to do this. This can be done by the following much simpler one line command:

RUN setx path "%path%;C:\Foo\bin"

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