How to copy files temporarily in Dockerfile
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It’s very common to copy a local file into the container when build docker image. In general, we use COPY command. But it creates a new layer and increase the final image size. If this is a temporal file and we don’t want users waste their storage space, how can we remove it? Here are some approaches.
Download the File Dynamically #
If the file can be download from URL or you can create a local HTTP server to share the file, you can download the file, use it and delete it in one RUN command. For example:
RUN wget xxxx && unzip xxx && rm xxx
RUN --mount Command #
You can also mount file when build image if your file can’t be download from Internet or the file is secret. Use it to bind files or directories to the build container.
A bind mount is read-only by default, add rw parameter to make it writable. The changes during the build are discared after the build is complete.
The mounted folder are kept in the image, but the files are gone. Don’t forget to delete the empty folder if you want to keep image clean.
Mount folder #
RUN --mount=type=bind,target=/target_dir/,source=./source_dir/,rw
Mount file #
RUN --mount=type=bind,target=/azure-cli.rpm,source=./docker/azure-cli.rpm tdnf install ca-certificates /azure-cli.rpm -y && tdnf clean all
--squash option in docker build #
You can also use --squash to reduce image size.
Once the build is complete, Docker creates a new image loading the diffs from each layer into a single new layer and references all the parent’s layers. So the extra space created by COPY command can be freed by squash.