docker executable file not found in PATH

Question

I have a docker image which installs grunt  but when I try to run it  I get an error     Error response from daemon  Cannot start container foo 1        exec   grunt serve   executable file not found in  PATH   If I run bash in interactive mode  grunt is available   What am I doing wrong   Here is my Dockerfile     https   registry hub docker com u dockerfile nodejs   builds on ubuntu 14 04  FROM dockerfile nodejs  MAINTAINER My Name  me email com  ENV HOME  home web WORKDIR  home web site  RUN useradd web -d  home web -s  bin bash -m  RUN npm install -g grunt-cli RUN npm install -g bower  RUN chown -R web web  home web USER web  RUN git clone https   github com repo site  home web site  RUN npm install RUN bower install --config interactive false --allow-root  ENV NODE ENV development    Port 9000 for server   Port 35729 for livereload EXPOSE 9000 35729 CMD   grunt

User · Answer

There are several possible reasons for an error like this.

In my case, it was due to the executable file (docker-entrypoint.sh from the Ghost blog Dockerfile) lacking the executable file mode after I'd downloaded it.

Solution: chmod +x docker-entrypoint.sh

User · Answer

In the error message shown   Error response from daemon  Cannot start container foo 1        exec   quot grunt serve quot   executable file not found in  PATH   It is complaining that it cannot find the executable grunt serve  not that it could not find the executable grunt with the argument serve  The most likely explanation for that specific error is running the command with the json syntax     quot grunt serve quot     in something like your compose file  That s invalid since the json syntax requires you to split up each parameter that would normally be split by the shell on each space for you  E g      quot grunt quot    quot serve quot     The other possible way you can get both of those into a single parameter is if you were to quote them into a single arg in your docker run command  e g  docker run your image name  quot grunt serve quot   and in that case  you need to remove the quotes so it gets passed as separate args to the run command  docker run your image name grunt serve   For others seeing this  the executable file not found means that Linux does not see the binary you are trying to run inside your container with the default  PATH value  That could mean lots of possible causes  here are a few   Did you remember to include the binary inside your image  If you run a multi-stage image  make sure that binary install is run in the final stage  Run your image with an interactive shell and verify it exists  docker run -it --rm your image name  bin sh   Your path when shelling into the container may be modified for the interactive shell  particularly if you use bash  so you may need to specify the full path to the binary inside the container  or you may need to update the path in your Dockerfile with  ENV PATH  PATH  custom dir bin   The binary may not have execute bits set on it  so you may need to make it executable  Do that with chmod  RUN chmod 755  custom dir bin executable   If you run the image with a volume  that volume can overlay the directory where the executable exists in your image  Volumes do not merge with the image  they get mounted in the filesystem tree same as any other Linux filesystem mount  That means files from the parent filesystem at the mount point are no longer visible   Note that named volumes are initialized by docker from the image content  but this only happens when the named volume is empty   So the fix is to not mount volumes on top of paths where you have executables you want to run from the image

User · Answer

problem is glibc  which is not part of apline base iamge  After adding it worked for me    Here are the steps to get the glibc apk --no-cache add ca-certificates wget wget -q -O  etc apk keys sgerrand rsa pub https   alpine-pkgs sgerrand com sgerrand rsa pub wget https   github com sgerrand alpine-pkg-glibc releases download 2 28-r0 glibc-2 28-r0 apk apk add glibc-2 28-r0 apk

User · Answer

For some reason  I get that error unless I add the  bash  clarifier  Even adding     bin bash  to the top of my entrypoint file didn t help    ENTRYPOINT    bash    entrypoint sh

User · Answer

to make it work add soft reference to  usr bin    ln -s   which node   usr bin node    ln -s   which npm   usr bin npm

User · Answer

This was the first result on google when I pasted my error message  and it s because my arguments were out of order   The container name has to be after all of the arguments   Bad   docker run  lt container name gt  -v   pwd   src -it   Good   docker run -v   pwd   src -it  lt container name gt

User · Answer

A Docker container might be built without a shell  e g  https   github com fluent fluent-bit-docker-image issues 19    In this case  you can copy-in a statically compiled shell and execute it  e g   docker create --name temp-busybox busybox 1 31 0 docker cp temp-busybox  bin busybox busybox docker cp busybox mycontainerid  busybox docker exec -it mycontainerid  bin busybox sh

User · Answer

I found the same problem  I did the following   docker run -ti devops -v  tmp  tmp  bin bash   When I change it to  docker run -ti -v  tmp  tmp devops  bin bash   it works fine

User · Answer

When you use the exec format for a command  e g  CMD   grunt    a JSON array with double quotes  it will be executed without a shell  This means that most environment variables will not be present   If you specify your command as a regular string  e g  CMD grunt  then the string after CMD will be executed with  bin sh -c    More info on this is available in the CMD section of the Dockerfile reference

User · Answer

I had the same problem  After lots of googling  I couldn t find out how to fix it   Suddenly I noticed my stupid mistake     As mentioned in the docs  the last part of docker run is the command you want to run and its arguments after loading up the container    NOT THE CONTAINER NAME      That was my embarrassing mistake   Below I provided you with the picture of my command line to see what I have done wrong   And this is the fix as mentioned in the docs

[docker] docker: executable file not found in $PATH

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