I'm trying to build a new Docker image for our development process, using cpanm
to install a bunch of Perl modules as a base image for various projects.
While developing the Dockerfile, cpanm
returns a failure code because some of the modules did not install cleanly.
I'm fairly sure I need to get apt
to install some more things.
My question is, where can I find the /.cpanm/work
directory quoted in the output, in order to inspect the logs? In the general case, how can I inspect the file system of a failed docker build
command?
Morning edit After biting the bullet and running a find
I discovered
/var/lib/docker/aufs/diff/3afa404e[...]/.cpanm
Is this reliable, or am I better off building a "bare" container and running stuff manually until I have all the things I need?
The top answer works in the case that you want to examine the state immediately prior to the failed command.
However, the question asks how to examine the state of the failed container itself. In my situation, the failed command is a build that takes several hours, so rewinding prior to the failed command and running it again takes a long time and is not very helpful.
The solution here is to find the container that failed:
$ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
6934ada98de6 42e0228751b3 "/bin/sh -c './utils/" 24 minutes ago Exited (1) About a minute ago sleepy_bell
Commit it to an image:
$ docker commit 6934ada98de6
sha256:7015687976a478e0e94b60fa496d319cdf4ec847bcd612aecf869a72336e6b83
And then run the image [if necessary, running bash]:
$ docker run -it 7015687976a4 [bash -il]
Now you are actually looking at the state of the build at the time that it failed, instead of at the time before running the command that caused the failure.
Debugging build step failures is indeed very annoying.
The best solution I have found is to make sure that each step that does real work succeeds, and adding a check after those that fails. That way you get a committed layer that contains the outputs of the failed step that you can inspect.
A Dockerfile, with an example after the # Run DB2 silent installer
line:
#
# DB2 10.5 Client Dockerfile (Part 1)
#
# Requires
# - DB2 10.5 Client for 64bit Linux ibm_data_server_runtime_client_linuxx64_v10.5.tar.gz
# - Response file for DB2 10.5 Client for 64bit Linux db2rtcl_nr.rsp
#
#
# Using Ubuntu 14.04 base image as the starting point.
FROM ubuntu:14.04
MAINTAINER David Carew <[email protected]>
# DB2 prereqs (also installing sharutils package as we use the utility uuencode to generate password - all others are required for the DB2 Client)
RUN dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update && apt-get install -y sharutils binutils libstdc++6:i386 libpam0g:i386 && ln -s /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpam.so.0 /lib/libpam.so.0
RUN apt-get install -y libxml2
# Create user db2clnt
# Generate strong random password and allow sudo to root w/o password
#
RUN \
adduser --quiet --disabled-password -shell /bin/bash -home /home/db2clnt --gecos "DB2 Client" db2clnt && \
echo db2clnt:`dd if=/dev/urandom bs=16 count=1 2>/dev/null | uuencode -| head -n 2 | grep -v begin | cut -b 2-10` | chgpasswd && \
adduser db2clnt sudo && \
echo '%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' >> /etc/sudoers
# Install DB2
RUN mkdir /install
# Copy DB2 tarball - ADD command will expand it automatically
ADD v10.5fp9_linuxx64_rtcl.tar.gz /install/
# Copy response file
COPY db2rtcl_nr.rsp /install/
# Run DB2 silent installer
RUN mkdir /logs
RUN (/install/rtcl/db2setup -t /logs/trace -l /logs/log -u /install/db2rtcl_nr.rsp && touch /install/done) || /bin/true
RUN test -f /install/done || (echo ERROR-------; echo install failed, see files in container /logs directory of the last container layer; echo run docker run '<last image id>' /bin/cat /logs/trace; echo ----------)
RUN test -f /install/done
# Clean up unwanted files
RUN rm -fr /install/rtcl
# Login as db2clnt user
CMD su - db2clnt
What I would do is comment out the Dockerfile below and including the offending line. Then you can run the container and run the docker commands by hand, and look at the logs in the usual way. E.g. if the Dockerfile is
RUN foo
RUN bar
RUN baz
and it's dying at bar I would do
RUN foo
# RUN bar
# RUN baz
Then
$ docker build -t foo .
$ docker run -it foo bash
container# bar
...grep logs...
Docker caches the entire filesystem state after each successful RUN
line.
Knowing that:
RUN
command, comment it out in the Dockerfile (as well as any and all subsequent RUN
commands), then run docker build
and docker run
again.RUN
command, simply add || true
to it to force it to succeed; then proceed like above (keep any and all subsequent RUN
commands commented out, run docker build
and docker run
)Tada, no need to mess with Docker internals or layer IDs, and as a bonus Docker automatically minimizes the amount of work that needs to be re-done.
Source: Stackoverflow.com