Using SSH keys inside docker container

Question

I have an app that executes various fun stuff with Git  like running git clone  amp  git push  and I m trying to docker-ize it   I m running into an issue though where I need to be able to add an SSH key to the container for the container  user  to use   I tried copying it into  root  ssh   changing  HOME  creating a git ssh wrapper  and still no luck    Here is the Dockerfile for reference    DOCKER-VERSION 0 3 4                                                             from  ubuntu 12 04                                                                RUN  apt-get update                                                              RUN  apt-get install python-software-properties python g   make git-core openssh-server -y RUN  add-apt-repository ppa chris-lea node js                                    RUN  echo  deb http   archive ubuntu com ubuntu precise universe   gt  gt   etc apt sources list RUN  apt-get update                                                              RUN  apt-get install nodejs -y                                                    ADD    src                                                                        ADD       home ubuntu  ssh id rsa  root  ssh id rsa                              RUN   cd  src  npm install                                                        EXPOSE  808 808                                                                   CMD      node     src app js     app js runs the git commands like git pull

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Simplest way  get a launchpad account and use  ssh-import-id

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In my case I had a problem with nodejs and  npm i  from a remote repository  I fixed it added  node  user to nodejs container and 700 to    ssh in container   Dockerfile   USER node  added the part COPY run sh  usr local bin  CMD   run sh     run sh      bin bash chmod 700 -R    ssh    added the part   docker-compose yml   nodejs        build    nodejs 10        container name  nodejs       restart  always       ports          -  3000 3000        volumes          -    www   var www html  delegated         -   ssh  home node  ssh  added the part       links          - mailhog       networks          - work-network   after that it started works

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Starting from docker API 1 39   Check API version with docker version  docker build allows the --ssh option with either an agent socket or keys to allow the Docker Engine to forward SSH agent connections   Build Command  export DOCKER BUILDKIT 1 docker build --ssh default    ssh id rsa     Dockerfile    syntax docker dockerfile experimental FROM python 3 7    Install ssh client  if required  RUN apt-get update -qq RUN apt-get install openssh-client -y    Download public key for github com RUN --mount type ssh mkdir -p -m 0600    ssh  amp  amp  ssh-keyscan github com  gt  gt     ssh known hosts    Clone private repository RUN --mount type ssh git clone git github com myorg myproject git myproject   More Info    https   docs docker com develop develop-images build enhancements  using-ssh-to-access-private-data-in-builds https   github com moby buildkit blob master frontend dockerfile docs experimental md run---mounttypessh

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A simple and secure way to achieve this without saving your key in a Docker image layer  or going through ssh agent gymnastics is    As one of the steps in your Dockerfile  create a  ssh directory by adding   RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh Below that indicate that you would like to mount the ssh directory as a volume   VOLUME     root  ssh    Ensure that your container s ssh config knows where to find the public keys by adding this line    RUN  echo      IdentityFile  root  ssh id rsa   gt  gt   etc ssh ssh config Expose you local user s  ssh directory to the container at runtime   docker run -v    ssh  root  ssh -it image name  Or in your dockerCompose yml add this under the service s volume key   -     ssh  root  ssh    Your final Dockerfile should contain something like   FROM node 6 9 1  RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh RUN  echo      IdentityFile  root  ssh id rsa   gt  gt   etc ssh ssh config  VOLUME     root  ssh     EXPOSE 3000  CMD    launch

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you can selectively let remote servers access your local ssh-agent as if it was running on the server   https   developer github com guides using-ssh-agent-forwarding

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Forward the ssh authentication socket to the container   docker run --rm -ti           -v  SSH AUTH SOCK  tmp ssh auth sock           -e SSH AUTH SOCK  tmp ssh auth sock           -w  src           my image   Your script will be able to perform a git clone   Extra  If you want cloned files to belong to a specific user you need to use chown since using other user than root inside the container will make git fail   You can do this publishing to the container s environment some additional variables   docker run             -e OWNER USER   id -u            -e OWNER GROUP   id -g                  After you clone you must execute chown  OWNER USER  OWNER GROUP -R  lt source folder gt  to set the proper ownership before you leave the container so the files are accessible by a non-root user outside the container

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You can use multi stage build to build containers  This is the approach you can take  -  Stage 1  building an image with ssh  FROM ubuntu as sshImage LABEL stage sshImage ARG SSH PRIVATE KEY WORKDIR  root temp  RUN apt-get update  amp  amp        apt-get install -y git npm   RUN mkdir  root  ssh   amp  amp       echo    SSH PRIVATE KEY    gt   root  ssh id rsa  amp  amp       chmod 600  root  ssh id rsa  amp  amp       touch  root  ssh known hosts  amp  amp       ssh-keyscan github com  gt  gt   root  ssh known hosts  COPY package  json     RUN npm install  RUN cp -R node modules prod node modules   Stage 2  build your container  FROM node 10-alpine  RUN mkdir -p  usr app  WORKDIR  usr app  COPY        COPY --from sshImage  root temp prod node modules   node modules  EXPOSE 3006  CMD   npm    run    dev      add env attribute in your compose file      environment        - SSH PRIVATE KEY   SSH PRIVATE KEY    then pass args from build script like this   docker-compose build --build-arg SSH PRIVATE KEY    cat    ssh id rsa     And remove the intermediate container it for security   This Will help you cheers

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In later versions of docker  17 05  you can use multi stage builds   Which is the safest option as the previous builds can only ever be used by the subsequent build and are then destroyed  See the answer to my stackoverflow question for more info

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One cross-platform solution is to use a bind mount to share the host s  ssh folder to the container   docker run -v  home  lt host user gt   ssh  home  lt docker user gt   ssh  lt image gt    Similar to agent forwarding this approach will make the public keys accessible to the container  An additional upside is that it works with a non-root user too and will get you connected to GitHub  One caveat to consider  however  is that all contents  including private keys  from the  ssh folder will be shared so this approach is only desirable for development and only for trusted container images

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I put together a very simple solution that works for my use case where I use a  quot builder quot  docker image to build an executable that gets deployed separately  In other words my  quot builder quot  image never leaves my local machine and only needs access to private repos dependencies during the build phase  You do not need to change your Dockerfile for this solution  When you run your container  mount your    ssh directory  this avoids having to bake the keys directly into the image  but rather ensures they re only available to a single container instance for a short period of time during the build phase   In my case I have several build scripts that automate my deployment  Inside my build-and-package sh script I run the container like this     do some script stuff before           docker run --rm      -v    ssh  root  ssh      -v   workspace   workspace      -w  workspace builder      bash -cl    scripts build-init sh  executable          do some script stuff after  i e  pull the built executable out of the workspace  etc     The build-init sh script looks like this     bin bash  set -eu  executable  1    start the ssh agent eval   ssh-agent   gt   dev null    add the ssh key  ssh key should not have a passphrase  ssh-add  root  ssh id rsa    execute the build command swift build --product  executable -c release  So instead of executing the swift build command  or whatever build command is relevant to your environment  directly in the docker run command  we instead execute the build-init sh script which starts the ssh-agent  then adds our ssh key to the agent  and finally executes our swift build command  Note 1  For this to work you ll need to make sure your ssh key does not have a passphrase  otherwise the ssh-add  root  ssh id rsa line will ask for a passphrase and interrupt the build script  Note 2  Make sure you have the proper file permissions set on your script files so that they can be run  Hopefully this provides a simple solution for others with a similar use case

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You can also link your  ssh directory between the host and the container  I don t know if this method has any security implications but it may be the easiest method  Something like this should work     sudo docker run -it -v  root  ssh  root  ssh someimage bash   Remember that docker runs with sudo  unless you don t   if this is the case you ll be using the root ssh keys

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This issue is really an annoying one  Since you can t add copy any file outside the dockerfile context  which means it s impossible to just link    ssh id rsa into image s  root  ssh id rsa  and when you definitely need a key to do some sshed thing like git clone from a private repo link     during the building of your docker image   Anyways  I found a solution to workaround  not so persuading but did work for me    in your dockerfile    add this file as  root  ssh id rsa do what you want  such as git clone  composer    rm  root  ssh id rsa at the end  a script to do in one shoot    cp your key to the folder holding dockerfile docker build rm the copied key  anytime you have to run a container from this image with some ssh requirements  just add -v for the run command  like   docker run -v    ssh id rsa  root  ssh id rsa --name container image command   This solution results in no private key in both you project source and the built docker image  so no security issue to worry about anymore

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For debian   root   authorized keys   RUN set -x  amp  amp  apt-get install -y openssh-server  RUN mkdir  var run sshd RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh RUN sed -i  s  PermitRootLogin prohibit-password PermitRootLogin yes    etc ssh sshd config RUN  echo  ssh-rsa AAAA    yP3w   rsa-key-project01   gt  gt   root  ssh authorized keys RUN chmod -R go   root  ssh

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As eczajk already commented in Daniel van Flymen s answer it does not seem to be safe to remove the keys and use --squash  as they still will be visible in the history  docker history --no-trunc    Instead with Docker 18 09  you can now use the  build secrets  feature  In my case I cloned a private git repo using my hosts SSH key with the following in my Dockerfile     syntax docker dockerfile experimental         RUN --mount type ssh git clone                To be able to use this  you need to enable the new BuildKit backend prior to running docker build   export DOCKER BUILDKIT 1   And you need to add the --ssh default parameter to docker build   More info about this here  https   medium com  tonistiigi build-secrets-and-ssh-forwarding-in-docker-18-09-ae8161d066

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Turns out when using Ubuntu  the ssh config isn t correct  You need to add   RUN  echo      IdentityFile    ssh id rsa   gt  gt   etc ssh ssh config   to your Dockerfile in order to get it to recognize your ssh key

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You can use secrets to manage any sensitive data which a container   needs at runtime but you don   t want to store in the image or in source   control  such as          Usernames and passwords   TLS certificates and keys   SSH keys   Other important data such as the name of a database or internal server   Generic strings or binary content  up to 500 kb in size          https   docs docker com engine swarm secrets    I was trying to figure out how to add signing keys to a container to use during runtime  not build  and came across this question  Docker secrets seem to be the solution for my use case  and since nobody has mentioned it yet I ll add it

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Late to the party admittedly  how about this which will make your host operating system keys available to root inside the container  on the fly   docker run -v    ssh  mnt -it my image  bin bash -c  ln -s  mnt  root  ssh  ssh user 10 20 30 40    I m not in favour of using Dockerfile to install keys since iterations of your container may leave private keys behind

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Expanding Peter Grainger s answer I was able to use multi-stage build available since Docker 17 05  Official page states      With multi-stage builds  you use multiple FROM statements in your Dockerfile  Each FROM instruction can use a different base  and each of them begins a new stage of the build  You can selectively copy artifacts from one stage to another  leaving behind everything you don   t want in the final image    Keeping this in mind here is my example of Dockerfile including three build stages  It s meant to create a production image of client web application     Stage 1  get sources from npm and git over ssh FROM node carbon AS sources ARG SSH KEY ARG SSH KEY PASSPHRASE RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh  amp  amp        chmod 0700  root  ssh  amp  amp        ssh-keyscan bitbucket org  gt   root  ssh known hosts  amp  amp        echo    SSH KEY    gt   root  ssh id rsa  amp  amp        chmod 600  root  ssh id rsa WORKDIR  app  COPY package  json yarn lock  app  RUN eval  ssh-agent -s   amp  amp        printf    SSH KEY PASSPHRASE  n    ssh-add  HOME  ssh id rsa  amp  amp        yarn --pure-lockfile --mutex file --network-concurrency 1  amp  amp        rm -rf  root  ssh     Stage 2  build minified production code FROM node carbon AS production WORKDIR  app  COPY --from sources  app   app  COPY    app  RUN yarn build prod    Stage 3  include only built production files and host them with Node Express server FROM node carbon WORKDIR  app  RUN yarn add express COPY --from production  app dist   app dist  COPY server js  app  EXPOSE 33330 CMD   node    server js      dockerignore repeats contents of  gitignore file  it prevents node modules and resulting dist directories of the project from being copied     idea dist node modules   log   Command example to build an image     docker build -t ezze geoport 0 6 0     --build-arg SSH KEY    cat    ssh id rsa       --build-arg SSH KEY PASSPHRASE  my super secret           If your private SSH key doesn t have a passphrase just specify empty SSH KEY PASSPHRASE argument   This is how it works   1   On the first stage only package json  yarn lock files and private SSH key are copied to the first intermediate image named sources  In order to avoid further SSH key passphrase prompts it is automatically added to ssh-agent  Finally yarn command installs all required dependencies from NPM and clones private git repositories from Bitbucket over SSH   2   The second stage builds and minifies source code of web application and places it in dist directory of the next intermediate image named production  Note that source code of installed node modules is copied from the image named sources produced on the first stage by this line   COPY --from sources  app   app    Probably it also could be the following line   COPY --from sources  app node modules   app node modules    We have only node modules directory from the first intermediate image here  no SSH KEY and SSH KEY PASSPHRASE arguments anymore  All the rest required for build is copied from our project directory   3   On the third stage we reduce a size of the final image that will be tagged as ezze geoport 0 6 0 by including only dist directory from the second intermediate image named production and installing Node Express for starting a web server   Listing images gives an output like this   REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE ezze geoport        0 6 0               8e8809c4e996        3 hours ago         717MB  lt none gt                lt none gt               1f6518644324        3 hours ago         1 1GB  lt none gt                lt none gt               fa00f1182917        4 hours ago         1 63GB node                carbon              b87c2ad8344d        4 weeks ago         676MB   where non-tagged images correpsond to the first and the second intermediate build stages   If you run    docker history ezze geoport 0 6 0 --no-trunc   you will not see any mentions of SSH KEY and SSH KEY PASSPHRASE in the final image

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I ran into the same problem today and little bit modified version with previous posts I found this approach more useful to me  docker run -it -v    ssh id rsa  root  my-key ro image  bin bash    Note that readonly flag so container will not mess my ssh key in any case    Inside container I can now run   ssh-agent bash -c  ssh-add    my-key  git clone  lt gitrepourl gt   lt target gt     So I don t get that Bad owner or permissions on  root  ssh    error which was noted by  kross

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It s a harder problem if you need to use SSH at build time  For example if you re using git clone  or in my case pip and npm to download from a private repository   The solution I found is to add your keys using the --build-arg flag  Then you can use the new experimental --squash command  added 1 13  to merge the layers so that the keys are no longer available after removal  Here s my solution   Build command    docker build -t example --build-arg ssh prv key    cat    ssh id rsa   --build-arg ssh pub key    cat    ssh id rsa pub   --squash     Dockerfile  FROM python 3 6-slim  ARG ssh prv key ARG ssh pub key  RUN apt-get update  amp  amp        apt-get install -y           git           openssh-server           libmysqlclient-dev    Authorize SSH Host RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh  amp  amp        chmod 0700  root  ssh  amp  amp        ssh-keyscan github com  gt   root  ssh known hosts    Add the keys and set permissions RUN echo   ssh prv key   gt   root  ssh id rsa  amp  amp        echo   ssh pub key   gt   root  ssh id rsa pub  amp  amp        chmod 600  root  ssh id rsa  amp  amp        chmod 600  root  ssh id rsa pub    Avoid cache purge by adding requirements first ADD   requirements txt  app requirements txt  WORKDIR  app   RUN pip install -r requirements txt    Remove SSH keys RUN rm -rf  root  ssh     Add the rest of the files ADD      CMD python manage py runserver     Update  If you re using Docker 1 13 and have experimental features on you can append --squash to the build command which will merge the layers  removing the SSH keys and hiding them from docker history

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You can pass the authorised keys in to your container using a shared folder and set permissions using a docker file like this   FROM ubuntu 16 04 RUN apt-get install -y openssh-server RUN mkdir  var run sshd EXPOSE 22 RUN cp  root auth id rsa pub  root  ssh authorized keys RUN rm -f  root auth RUN chmod 700  root  ssh RUN chmod 400  root  ssh authorized keys RUN chown root   root  ssh authorized keys CMD  usr sbin sshd -D   And your docker run contains something like the following to share an auth directory on the host  holding the authorised keys  with the container then open up the ssh port which will be accessable through port 7001 on the host   -d -v  home thatsme dockerfiles auth  root auth -   publish 127 0 0 1 7001 22   You may want to look at https   github com jpetazzo nsenter which appears to be another way to open a shell on a container and execute commands within a container

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In a running docker container  you can issue ssh-keygen with the docker -i  interactive  option  This will forward the container prompts to create the key inside the docker container

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If you don t care about the security of your SSH keys  there are many good answers here  If you do  the best answer I found was from a link in a comment above to this GitHub comment by diegocsandrim  So that others are more likely to see it  and just in case that repo ever goes away  here is an edited version of that answer   Most solutions here end up leaving the private key in the image  This is bad  as anyone with access to the image has access to your private key  Since we don t know enough about the behavior of squash  this may still be the case even if you delete the key and squash that layer   We generate a pre-sign URL to access the key with aws s3 cli  and limit the access for about 5 minutes  we save this pre-sign URL into a file in repo directory  then in dockerfile we add it to the image   In dockerfile we have a RUN command that do all these steps  use the pre-sing URL to get the ssh key  run npm install  and remove the ssh key   By doing this in one single command the ssh key would not be stored in any layer  but the pre-sign URL will be stored  and this is not a problem because the URL will not be valid after 5 minutes   The build script looks like     build sh aws s3 presign s3   my bucket my key --expires-in 300  gt    pre sign url docker build -t my-service     Dockerfile looks like this   FROM node  COPY      RUN eval    ssh-agent -s    amp  amp        wget -i   pre sign url -q -O -  gt    my key  amp  amp        chmod 700   my key  amp  amp        ssh-add   my key  amp  amp        ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking no git github com    true  amp  amp        npm install --production  amp  amp        rm   my key  amp  amp        rm -rf    ssh    ENTRYPOINT   npm    run    CMD   start

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I m trying to work the problem the other way  adding public ssh key to an image  But in my trials  I discovered that  docker cp  is for copying FROM a container to a host  Item 3 in the answer by creak seems to be saying you can use docker cp to inject files into a container  See https   docs docker com engine reference commandline cp   excerpt     Copy files folders from a container s filesystem to the host path    Paths are relative to the root of the filesystem     Usage  docker cp CONTAINER PATH HOSTPATH    Copy files folders from the PATH to the HOSTPATH

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Docker containers should be seen as  services  of their own  To separate concerns you should separate functionalities   1  Data should be in a data container  use a linked volume to clone the repo into  That data container can then be linked to the service needing it   2  Use a container to run the git cloning task   i e it s only job is cloning  linking the data container to it when you run it   3  Same for the ssh-key  put it is a volume  as suggested above  and link it to the git clone service when you need it  That way  both the cloning task and the key are ephemeral and only active when needed   Now if your app itself is a git interface  you might want to consider github or bitbucket REST APIs directly to do your work  that s what they were designed for

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A concise overview of the challenges of SSH inside Docker containers is detailed here  For connecting to trusted remotes from within a container without leaking secrets there are a few ways    SSH agent forwarding  Linux-only  not straight-forward  Inbuilt SSH with BuildKit  Experimental  not yet supported by Compose  Using a bind mount to expose    ssh to container   Development only  potentially insecure  Docker Secrets  Cross-platform  adds complexity    Beyond these there s also the possibility of using a key-store running in a separate docker container accessible at runtime when using Compose  The drawback here is additional complexity due to the machinery required to create and manage a keystore such as Vault by HashiCorp   For SSH key use in a stand-alone Docker container see the methods linked above and consider the drawbacks of each depending on your specific needs  If  however  you re running inside Compose and want to share a key to an app at runtime  reflecting practicalities of the OP  try this    Create a docker-compose env file and add it to your  gitignore file  Update your docker-compose yml and add env file for service requiring the key  Access public key from environment at application runtime  e g  process node DEPLOYER RSA PUBKEY in the case of a Node js application    The above approach is ideal for development and testing and  while it could satisfy production requirements  in production you re better off using one of the other methods identified above   Additional resources    Docker Docs  Use bind mounts Docker Docs  Manage sensitive data with Docker secrets Stack Overflow  Using SSH keys inside docker container Stack Overflow  Using ssh-agent with docker on macOS

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This line is a problem   ADD       home ubuntu  ssh id rsa  root  ssh id rsa   When specifying the files you want to copy into the image you can only use relative paths - relative to the directory where your Dockerfile is  So you should instead use   ADD id rsa  root  ssh id rsa   And put the id rsa file into the same directory where your Dockerfile is   Check this out for more details  http   docs docker io reference builder  add

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It looks like this is now available in the 18 09 release  According to documentation   The docker build has a --ssh option to allow the Docker Engine to forward SSH agent connections   Here is an example Dockerfile using SSH in the container    syntax docker dockerfile experimental FROM alpine    Install ssh client and git RUN apk add --no-cache openssh-client git    Download public key for github com RUN mkdir -p -m 0600    ssh  amp  amp  ssh-keyscan github com  gt  gt     ssh known hosts    Clone private repository RUN --mount type ssh git clone git github com myorg myproject git myproject  Once the Dockerfile is created  use the --ssh option for connectivity with the SSH agent    docker build --ssh default    Also  take a look at https   medium com  tonistiigi build-secrets-and-ssh-forwarding-in-docker-18-09-ae8161d066

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Note  only use this approach for images that are private and will always be    The ssh key remains stored within the image  even if you remove the key in a layer command after adding it  see comments in this post    In my case this is ok  so this is what I am using     Setup for ssh onto github RUN mkdir -p  root  ssh ADD id rsa  root  ssh id rsa RUN chmod 700  root  ssh id rsa RUN echo  Host github com n tStrictHostKeyChecking no n   gt  gt   root  ssh config

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We had similar problem when doing npm install in docker build time   Inspired from solution from Daniel van Flymen and combining it with  git url rewrite  we found a bit simpler method for authenticating npm install from private github repos - we used oauth2 tokens instead of the keys   In our case  the npm dependencies were specified as  git https   github com        For authentication in container  the urls need to be rewritten to either be suitable for ssh authentication  ssh   git github com   or token authentication  https     GITHUB TOKEN  github com     Build command   docker build -t sometag --build-arg GITHUB TOKEN  GITHUB TOKEN      Unfortunately  I m on docker 1 9  so --squash option is not there yet  eventually it needs to be added  Dockerfile   FROM node 5 10 0  ARG GITHUB TOKEN   Install dependencies COPY package json       add rewrite rule to authenticate github user RUN git config --global url  https     GITHUB TOKEN  github com   insteadOf  https   github com    RUN npm install    remove the secret token from the git config file  remember to use --squash option for docker build  when it becomes available in docker 1 13 RUN git config --global --unset url  https     GITHUB TOKEN  github com   insteadOf    Expose the ports that the app uses EXPOSE 8000   Copy server and client code COPY server  server  COPY clients  clients

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In order to inject you ssh key  within a container  you have multiple solutions    Using a Dockerfile with the ADD instruction  you can inject it during your build process Simply doing something like cat id rsa   docker run -i  lt image gt  sh -c  cat  gt   root  ssh id rsa  Using the docker cp command which allows you to inject files while a container is running

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If you are using docker compose an easy choice is to forward SSH agent like that   something      container name  something     volumes          -  SSH AUTH SOCK  ssh-agent   Forward local machine SSH key to docker     environment          SSH AUTH SOCK   ssh-agent

[ssh-keys] Using SSH keys inside docker container

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