Alpine Dockerfile Advantages of --no-cache Vs. rm /var/cache/apk/*

Question

When creating Dockerfiles using the Alpine image, I have often seen the use of the apk --no-cache and other times it is committed and instead I see rm /var/cache/apk/*.

I am curious to know making use of the --no-cache eliminates the need to later do a rm /var/cache/apk/*. I would also like to know if one style is favored over another.

Answer 1

The --no-cache option allows to not cache the index locally, which is useful for keeping containers small.

Literally it equals apk update in the beginning and rm -rf /var/cache/apk/* in the end.

Some example where we use --no-cache option:

$ docker run -ti alpine:3.7
/ # apk add nginx
WARNING: Ignoring APKINDEX.70c88391.tar.gz: No such file or directory
WARNING: Ignoring APKINDEX.5022a8a2.tar.gz: No such file or directory
ERROR: unsatisfiable constraints:
  nginx (missing):
    required by: world[nginx]
/ # 
/ # apk add --no-cache nginx
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
(1/2) Installing pcre (8.41-r1)
(2/2) Installing nginx (1.12.2-r3)
Executing nginx-1.12.2-r3.pre-install
Executing busybox-1.27.2-r7.trigger
OK: 6 MiB in 13 packages
/ # 
/ # ls -la /var/cache/apk/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          4096 Jan  9 19:37 .
drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root          4096 Mar  5 20:29 ..

Another example where we don't use --no-cache option:

$ docker run -ti alpine:3.7
/ # apk add nginx
WARNING: Ignoring APKINDEX.70c88391.tar.gz: No such file or directory
WARNING: Ignoring APKINDEX.5022a8a2.tar.gz: No such file or directory
ERROR: unsatisfiable constraints:
  nginx (missing):
    required by: world[nginx]
/ # 
/ # apk update
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
v3.7.0-107-g15dd6b8ab3 [http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/main]
v3.7.0-105-g4b8b158c40 [http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.7/community]
OK: 9048 distinct packages available
/ # 
/ # apk add nginx
(1/2) Installing pcre (8.41-r1)
(2/2) Installing nginx (1.12.2-r3)
Executing nginx-1.12.2-r3.pre-install
Executing busybox-1.27.2-r7.trigger
OK: 6 MiB in 13 packages
/ # 
/ # ls -la /var/cache/apk/
total 1204
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          4096 Mar  5 20:31 .
drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root          4096 Mar  5 20:31 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        451508 Mar  3 00:30 APKINDEX.5022a8a2.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        768680 Mar  5 09:39 APKINDEX.70c88391.tar.gz
/ # 
/ # rm -vrf /var/cache/apk/*
removed '/var/cache/apk/APKINDEX.5022a8a2.tar.gz'
removed '/var/cache/apk/APKINDEX.70c88391.tar.gz'

As you can see both cases are valid. As for me, using --no-cache option is more elegant.