https://github.com/alpinelinux/docker-alpine

Official Alpine Linux Docker image. Win at minimalism!
https://github.com/alpinelinux/docker-alpine

Last synced: about 2 months ago
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Official Alpine Linux Docker image. Win at minimalism!

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/alpinelinux/docker-alpine
• Owner: alpinelinux
• License: mit
• Created: 2019-03-05T15:31:11.000Z (over 5 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2024-07-22T18:31:08.000Z (2 months ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-07-23T18:10:00.237Z (2 months ago)
• Language: Lua
• Homepage:
• Size: 281 MB
• Stars: 1,048
• Watchers: 47
• Forks: 261
• Open Issues: 162
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.adoc
  • License: LICENSE

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README

        
= docker-alpine

:ao: alpinelinux.org

:hubp: _/alpine

:hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/{hubp}/

image:https://img.shields.io/docker/stars/{hubp}.svg[link={hub}]

image:https://img.shields.io/docker/pulls/{hubp}.svg[link={hub}]

The official Docker image for https://{ao}[Alpine Linux].

The image is only 5MB and has access to a package repository that is much more featureful than other BusyBox based images.

== Why

Docker images today are big.

Usually much larger than they need to be.

There are a lot of ways to make them smaller, but the Docker populace still jumps to the `ubuntu` base image for most projects.

The size savings over `ubuntu` and other bases are huge:

[source]

----

REPOSITORY  TAG     IMAGE ID      CREATED      SIZE

alpine      latest  961769676411  4 weeks ago  5.58MB

ubuntu      latest  2ca708c1c9cc  2 days ago   64.2MB

debian      latest  c2c03a296d23  9 days ago   114MB

centos      latest  67fa590cfc1c  4 weeks ago  202MB

----

There are images such as `progrium/busybox` which get us close to a minimal container and package system, but these particular BusyBox builds piggyback on the OpenWRT package index, which is often lacking and not tailored towards generic everyday applications.

Alpine Linux has a much more featureful and up to date https://pkgs.{ao}[Package Index]:

[source]

----

$ docker run progrium/busybox opkg-install nodejs

Unknown package 'nodejs'.

Collected errors:

 * opkg_install_cmd: Cannot install package nodejs.

$ docker run alpine apk add --no-cache nodejs

fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.9/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

fetch http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.9/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

(1/7) Installing ca-certificates (20190108-r0)

(2/7) Installing c-ares (1.15.0-r0)

(3/7) Installing libgcc (8.3.0-r0)

(4/7) Installing http-parser (2.8.1-r0)

(5/7) Installing libstdc++ (8.3.0-r0)

(6/7) Installing libuv (1.23.2-r0)

(7/7) Installing nodejs (10.14.2-r0)

Executing busybox-1.29.3-r10.trigger

Executing ca-certificates-20190108-r0.trigger

OK: 31 MiB in 21 packages

----

This makes Alpine Linux a great image base for utilities, as well as production applications.

https://www.{ao}/about/[Read more about Alpine Linux here] and it will become obvious how its mantra fits in right at home with Docker images.

NOTE: All of the example outputs above were last generated/updated on May 3rd 2019.

== Usage

Stop doing this:

[source, dockerfile]

----

FROM ubuntu:22.04

RUN apt-get update -q \

  && DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -qy mysql-client \

  && apt-get clean \

  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt

ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]

----

This took 28 seconds to build and yields a 169 MB image.

Start doing this:

[source, dockerfile]

----

FROM alpine:3.16

RUN apk add --no-cache mysql-client

ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]

----

Only 4 seconds to build and results in a 41 MB image!