You've built a Docker image. Great! It runs. But, not everything is there. Why not? Could it be a bad RUN command? This is the exact scenario I came across recently when helping someone debug an issue with their image builds.
To see the problem, lets use the following Dockerfile:
FROM alpine
RUN wget http://example.com/some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar; \
tar xf some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar; \
rm some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar; \
mkdir /app
When building the image, we get the following:
> docker build --no-cache .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 2.048kB
Step 1/2 : FROM alpine
---> 76da55c8019d
Step 2/2 : RUN wget http://example.com/some-file-that-isnt-there.tar; tar xf some-file-that-isnt-there.tar; rm some-file-that-isnt-there.tar; mkdir /app
---> Running in 4dd8833bdb02
Connecting to example.com (93.184.216.34:80)
wget: server returned error: HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
tar: can't open 'some-file-that-isnt-there.tar': No such file or directory
rm: can't remove 'some-file-that-isnt-there.tar': No such file or directory
---> 69356809831b
Removing intermediate container 4dd8833bdb02
Successfully built 69356809831b
Result: The build succeeded, even though there were major errors. That tells us that the result of the RUN command had a non-error exit status.
Looking at the RUN command, we see that the multiple commands are separated by semicolons. This causes all commands to run separately and ONLY the exit status of the last command is used to determine if the RUN succeeded or failed. Since the mkdir succeeded, the entire RUN passed. Doh!
Instead of using semicolons, we should use && between our commands. Once the first command fails, the entire RUN fails.
FROM alpine
# Swapped semicolons between commands with && between commands
RUN wget http://example.com/some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar && \
tar xf some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar && \
rm some-file-that-doesnt-exist.tar && \
mkdir /app
And what happens now when we build?
> docker build --no-cache .
Sending build context to Docker daemon 2.048kB
Step 1/2 : FROM alpine
---> 76da55c8019d
Step 2/2 : RUN wget http://example.com/some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && tar xf some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && rm some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && mkdir /app
---> Running in fc42a0768ac2
Connecting to example.com (93.184.216.34:80)
wget: server returned error: HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
The command '/bin/sh -c wget http://example.com/some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && tar xf some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && rm some-file-that-isnt-there.tar && mkdir /app' returned a non-zero code: 1