3 simple tricks for smaller Docker images

Published in February 2018

Updated in April 2019

When it comes to building Docker containers, you should always strive for smaller images. Images that share layers and are smaller in size are quicker to transfer and deploy.

But how do you keep the size under control when every RUN statement creates a new layer, and you need intermediate artefacts before the image is ready?

You may have noticed that most of the Dockerfile s in the wild have some weird tricks like this:

Dockerfile FROM ubuntu RUN apt - get update && apt - get install vim

Why the && ? Why not running two RUN statements like this?

Dockerfile FROM ubuntu RUN apt - get update RUN apt - get install vim

Since Docker 1.10 the COPY , ADD and RUN statements add a new layer to your image. The previous example created two layers instead of just one.

Layers are like git commits.

Docker layers store the difference between the previous and the current version of the image. And like git commits they're handy if you share them with other repositories or images.

In fact, when you request an image from a registry you download only the layers that you don't own already. This way is much more efficient to share images.

But layers aren't free.

Layers use space and the more layer you have, the heavier the final image is. Git repositories are similar in this respect. The size of your repository increases with the number of layers because Git has to store all the changes between commits.

In the past, it was a good practice to combine several RUN statements on a single line. Like in the first example.

Not anymore.

1. Squash multiple layers into one with multi-stage Docker builds

When a Git repository becomes bigger, you can choose to squash the history into a single commit and forget about the past.

It turns out you can do something similar in Docker too with a multi-stage build.

In this example, you will build a Node.js container.

Let's start with an index.js :

index.js const express = require ( 'express' ) const app = express ( ) app . get ( '/' , ( req , res ) => res . send ( 'Hello World!' ) ) app . listen ( 3000 , ( ) => { console . log ( ` Example app listening on port 3000! ` ) } )

and package.json :

package.json { "name" : "hello-world" , "version" : "1.0.0" , "main" : "index.js" , "dependencies" : { "express" : "^4.16.2" } , "scripts" : { "start" : "node index.js" } }

You can package this application with the following Dockerfile :

Dockerfile FROM node : 8 EXPOSE 3000 WORKDIR /app COPY package.json index.js ./ RUN npm install CMD [ "npm" , "start" ]

You can build the image with:

bash docker build -t node-vanilla .

And you can test that it works correctly with:

bash docker run -p 3000 :3000 -ti --rm --init node-vanilla > hello-world@1.0.0 start /app > node index.js Example app listening on port 3000 !

You should be able to visit http://localhost:3000 and be greeted by "Hello World!".

There is a COPY and a RUN statements in the Dockerfile . So you should expect to see at least two layers more than the base image:

bash docker history node-vanilla IMAGE CREATED BY SIZE 075d229d3f48 /bin/sh -c bc8c3cc813ae /bin/sh -c npm install 2 .91MB bac31afb6f42 /bin/sh -c 500a9fbef90e /bin/sh -c 78b28027dfbf /bin/sh -c b87c2ad8344d /bin/sh -c < missing > /bin/sh -c set -ex && for key in 6A010… 4 .17MB < missing > /bin/sh -c < missing > /bin/sh -c ARCH = && dpkgArch = "$(dpkg --print… 56.9MB <missing> /bin/sh -c #(nop) ENV NODE_VERSION=8.9.4 0B <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex && for key in 94AE3… 129kB <missing> /bin/sh -c groupadd --gid 1000 node && use… 335kB <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex; apt-get update; apt-ge… 324MB <missing> /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install… 123MB <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex; if ! command -v gpg > /… 0B <missing> /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install… 44.6MB <missing> /bin/sh -c #(nop) CMD [" bash" ] 0B < missing > /bin/sh -c

Instead the resulting image has five new layers: one for each statement in your Dockerfile .

Let's try the multi-stage Docker build.

You will use the same Dockerfile above, but twice:

Dockerfile FROM node : 8 as build WORKDIR /app COPY package.json index.js ./ RUN npm install FROM node : 8 COPY - - from=build /app / EXPOSE 3000 CMD [ "index.js" ]

The first part of the Dockerfile creates three layers. The layers are then merged and copied across to the second and final stage. Two more layers are added on top of the image for a total of 3 layers.

Go ahead and verify yourself. First, build the container:

bash docker build -t node-multi-stage .

And now inspect the history:

bash docker history node-multi-stage IMAGE CREATED BY SIZE 331b81a245b1 /bin/sh -c bdfc932314af /bin/sh -c f8992f6c62a6 /bin/sh -c b87c2ad8344d /bin/sh -c < missing > /bin/sh -c set -ex && for key in 6A010… 4 .17MB < missing > /bin/sh -c < missing > /bin/sh -c ARCH = && dpkgArch = "$(dpkg --print… 56.9MB <missing> /bin/sh -c #(nop) ENV NODE_VERSION=8.9.4 0B <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex && for key in 94AE3… 129kB <missing> /bin/sh -c groupadd --gid 1000 node && use… 335kB <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex; apt-get update; apt-ge… 324MB <missing> /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install… 123MB <missing> /bin/sh -c set -ex; if ! command -v gpg > /… 0B <missing> /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install… 44.6MB <missing> /bin/sh -c #(nop) CMD [" bash" ] 0B < missing > /bin/sh -c

Hurrah! Has the file size changed at all?

bash docker images | grep node- node-multi-stage 331b81a245b1 678MB node-vanilla 075d229d3f48 679MB

Yes, the last image is slightly smaller.

Not too bad! You reduced the overall size even if this is an already slimmed down application.

But the image is still big!

Is there anything you can do to make it even smaller?

2. Remove all the unnecessary cruft from the container with distroless

The current image ships Node.js as well as yarn , npm , bash and a lot of other binaries. It's also based on Ubuntu. So you have a fully fledged operating system with all its little binaries and utilities.

You don't need any of those when you run your container. The only dependency you need is Node.js.

Docker containers should wrap a single process and contain the bare minimal to run it. You don't need an operating system.

In fact, you could remove everything but Node.js.

But how?

Fortunately, Google had the same idea and came up with GoogleCloudPlatform/distroless.

As the description for the repository points out:

"Distroless" images contain only your application and its runtime dependencies. They do not contain package managers, shells any other programs you would expect to find in a standard Linux distribution.

This is precisely what you need!

You can tweak the Dockerfile to leverage the new base image like this:

Dockerfile FROM node : 8 as build WORKDIR /app COPY package.json index.js ./ RUN npm install FROM gcr.io/distroless/nodejs COPY - - from=build /app / EXPOSE 3000 CMD [ "index.js" ]

And you can compile the image as usual with:

bash docker build -t node-distroless .

The application should run as normal. To verify that is still the case, you could run the container like this:

bash docker run -p 3000 :3000 -ti --rm --init node-distroless

And visit the page at http://localhost:3000.

Is the image without all the extra binaries smaller?

bash docker images | grep node-distroless node-distroless 7b4db3b7f1e5 76 .7MB

That's only 76.7MB!

600MB less than your previous image!

Excellent news! But there's something you should pay attention to when it comes to distroless.

When your container is running, and you wish to inspect it, you can attach to a running container with:

bash docker exec -ti < insert_docker_id > bash

Attaching to a running container and running bash feels like establishing an SSH session.

But since distroless is a stripped down version of the original operating system, there are no extra binaries. There's no shell in the container!

How can you attach to a running container if there's no shell?

The good and the bad news is that you can't.

It's bad news because you can only execute the binaries in the container. The only binary you could run is Node.js:

bash docker exec -ti < insert_docker_id > node

It's good news because an attacker exploiting your application and gaining access to the container won't be able to do as much damage as if were to access a shell. In other words, fewer binaries mean smaller sizes and increased security. But at the cost of more painful debugging.

Please note that perhaps you shouldn't attach to and debug containers in a production environment. You should rather rely on proper logging and monitoring.

But what if you cared about debugging and smaller sizes?

3. Smaller base images with Alpine

You could replace the distroless base image with an Alpine based image.

Alpine Linux is:

a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox

In other words, a Linux distribution that is smaller in size and more secure.

You shouldn't take their words for granted. Let's check if the image is smaller.

You should tweak the Dockerfile and use node:8-alpine :

Dockerfile FROM node : 8 as build WORKDIR /app COPY package.json index.js ./ RUN npm install FROM node : 8 - alpine COPY - - from=build /app / EXPOSE 3000 CMD [ "npm" , "start" ]

You can build the image with:

bash docker build -t node-alpine .

And you can check the size with:

bash docker images | grep node-alpine node-alpine aa1f85f8e724 69 .7MB

69.7MB!

Even smaller than the distroless image!

Can you attach to a running container, unlike distroless? It's time to find out.

Let's start the container first:

bash docker run -p 3000 :3000 -ti --rm --init node-alpine Example app listening on port 3000 !

You can attach to the running container with:

bash docker exec -ti 9d8e97e307d7 bash OCI runtime exec failed: exec failed: container_linux.go:296: starting container process caused "exec: \" bash \" : executable file not found in $PATH " : unknown

With no luck. But perhaps the container has a sh ell?

bash docker exec -ti 9d8e97e307d7 sh / /

Yes! You can still attach to a running container and you have an overall smaller image.

It sounds promising, but there's a catch.

Alpine based images are based on muslc — an alternative standard library for C.

However, most Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS are based on glibc. The two libraries are supposed to implement the same interface to the kernel.

However, they have different goals:

glibc is the most common and faster

is the most common and faster muslc uses less space and is written with security in mind

When an application is compiled, it is compiled against a specific libc for the most part. If you wish to use them with another libc you have to recompile them.

In other words, building your containers with Alpine images may lead to unexpected behaviour because the standard C library is different.

You may notice discrepancies particularly when you're dealing with precompiled binaries such as Node.js C++ extensions.

As an example, the PhantomJS prebuilt package doesn't work on Alpine.

What base image should you choose?

Do you use Alpine, distroless or vanilla images?

If you're running in production and you're concerned about security, perhaps distroless images are more appropriate.

Every binary that is added to a Docker image adds a certain amount of risk to the overall application.

You can reduce the overall risk by having only one binary installed in the container.

As an example, if an attacker was able to exploit a vulnerability in your app running on Distroless, they won't be able to spawn a shell in the container because there isn't one!

Please note that minimising attack surface area is recommended by OWASP.

If you're concerned about size at all costs, then you should switch to Alpine based images.

Those are generally very small but at the price of compatibility. Alpine uses a slightly different standard C library — muslc. You may experience some compatibility issues from time to time. More examples of that here "alpine-node docker image and google-cloud equals error loading ld-linux-x86-64.so.2" and here "Import error trying to run gRPC on alpine".

The vanilla base image is perfect for testing and development.

It's big but provides the same experiences as if you were to have your workstation with Ubuntu installed. Also, you have access to all the binaries available in the operating system.

Recap of image sizes:

Image Size (MB) node:8 681 node:8 with multi stage build 678 gcr.io/distroless/nodejs 76.7 node:8-alpine 69.7

That's all folks!

Thanks to Chris Nesbitt-Smith, Valentin Ouvrard and Keith Mifsud for their feedback!

That's all folks!

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