Welcome to Knowledge Base!

KB at your finger tips

Book a Meeting to Avail the Services of Docker overtime

This is one stop global knowledge base where you can learn about all the products, solutions and support features.

Categories
All

Docker

Inline cache

Inline cache

The inline cache storage backend is the simplest way to get an external cache and is easy to get started using if you’re already building and pushing an image. However, it doesn’t scale as well to multi-stage builds as well as the other drivers do. It also doesn’t offer separation between your output artifacts and your cache output. This means that if you’re using a particularly complex build flow, or not exporting your images directly to a registry, then you may want to consider the registry cache.

Synopsis

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-to type=inline \
  --cache-from type=registry,ref=<registry>/image .

No additional parameters are supported for the inline cache.

To export cache using inline storage, pass type=inline to the --cache-to option:

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-to type=inline .

Alternatively, you can also export inline cache by setting the build argument BUILDKIT_INLINE_CACHE=1 , instead of using the --cache-to flag:

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --arg BUILDKIT_INLINE_CACHE=1 .

To import the resulting cache on a future build, pass type=registry to --cache-from which lets you extract the cache from inside a Docker image in the specified registry:

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-from type=registry,ref=<registry>/<image> .

Further reading

For an introduction to caching see Optimizing builds with cache.

For more information on the inline cache backend, see the BuildKit README.


Stay Ahead in Today’s Competitive Market!
Unlock your company’s full potential with a Virtual Delivery Center (VDC). Gain specialized expertise, drive seamless operations, and scale effortlessly for long-term success.

Book a Meeting to Avail the Services of Dockerovertime

Docker driver

Docker driver

The Buildx Docker driver is the default driver. It uses the BuildKit server components built directly into the Docker engine. The Docker driver requires no configuration.

Unlike the other drivers, builders using the Docker driver can’t be manually created. They’re only created automatically from the Docker context.

Images built with the Docker driver are automatically loaded to the local image store.

Synopsis

# The Docker driver is used by buildx by default
docker buildx build .

It’s not possible to configure which BuildKit version to use, or to pass any additional BuildKit parameters to a builder using the Docker driver. The BuildKit version and parameters are preset by the Docker engine internally.

If you need additional configuration and flexibility, consider using the Docker container driver.

Further reading

For more information on the Docker driver, see the buildx reference.

Read article

Local and tar exporters

Local and tar exporters

The local and tar exporters output the root filesystem of the build result into a local directory. They’re useful for producing artifacts that aren’t container images.

  • local exports files and directories.
  • tar exports the same, but bundles the export into a tarball.

Synopsis

Build a container image using the local exporter:

$ docker buildx build --output type=local[,parameters] .
$ docker buildx build --output type=tar[,parameters] .

The following table describes the available parameters:

Parameter Type Default Description
dest String  Path to copy files to

Further reading

For more information on the local or tar exporters, see the BuildKit README.

Read article

Local cache

Local cache

The local cache store is a simple cache option that stores your cache as files in a directory on your filesystem, using an OCI image layout for the underlying directory structure. Local cache is a good choice if you’re just testing, or if you want the flexibility to self-manage a shared storage solution.

Note

This cache storage backend requires using a different driver than the default docker driver - see more information on selecting a driver here. To create a new driver (which can act as a simple drop-in replacement):

$ docker buildx create --use --driver=docker-container

Synopsis

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-to type=local,dest=path/to/local/dir[,parameters...] \
  --cache-from type=local,src=path/to/local/dir .

The following table describes the available CSV parameters that you can pass to --cache-to and --cache-from .

Name Option Type Default Description
src cache-from String  Path of the local directory where cache gets imported from.
digest cache-from String  Digest of manifest to import, see cache versioning.
dest cache-to String  Path of the local directory where cache gets exported to.
mode cache-to min , max min Cache layers to export, see cache mode.
oci-mediatypes cache-to true , false true Use OCI media types in exported manifests, see OCI media types.
compression cache-to gzip , estargz , zstd gzip Compression type, see cache compression.
compression-level cache-to 0..22 Â Compression level, see cache compression.
force-compression cache-to true , false false Forcibly apply compression, see cache compression.

If the src cache doesn’t exist, then the cache import step will fail, but the build will continue.

Cache versioning

This section describes how versioning works for caches on a local filesystem, and how you can use the digest parameter to use older versions of cache.

If you inspect the cache directory manually, you can see the resulting OCI image layout:

$ ls cache
blobs  index.json  ingest
$ cat cache/index.json | jq
{
  "schemaVersion": 2,
  "manifests": [
    {
      "mediaType": "application/vnd.oci.image.index.v1+json",
      "digest": "sha256:6982c70595cb91769f61cd1e064cf5f41d5357387bab6b18c0164c5f98c1f707",
      "size": 1560,
      "annotations": {
        "org.opencontainers.image.ref.name": "latest"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Like other cache types, local cache gets replaced on export, by replacing the contents of the index.json file. However, previous caches will still be available in the blobs directory. These old caches are addressable by digest, and kept indefinitely. Therefore, the size of the local cache will continue to grow (see moby/buildkit#1896 for more information).

When importing cache using --cache-to , you can specify the digest parameter to force loading an older version of the cache, for example:

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-to type=local,dest=path/to/local/dir \
  --cache-from type=local,ref=path/to/local/dir,digest=sha256:6982c70595cb91769f61cd1e064cf5f41d5357387bab6b18c0164c5f98c1f707 .

Further reading

For an introduction to caching see Optimizing builds with cache.

For more information on the local cache backend, see the BuildKit README.

Read article

Registry cache

Registry cache

The registry cache storage can be thought of as an extension to the inline cache. Unlike the inline cache, the registry cache is entirely separate from the image, which allows for more flexible usage - registry -backed cache can do everything that the inline cache can do, and more:

  • Allows for separating the cache and resulting image artifacts so that you can distribute your final image without the cache inside.
  • It can efficiently cache multi-stage builds in max mode, instead of only the final stage.
  • It works with other exporters for more flexibility, instead of only the image exporter.

Note

This cache storage backend requires using a different driver than the default docker driver - see more information on selecting a driver here. To create a new driver (which can act as a simple drop-in replacement):

$ docker buildx create --use --driver=docker-container

Synopsis

Unlike the simpler inline cache, the registry cache supports several configuration parameters:

$ docker buildx build --push -t <registry>/<image> \
  --cache-to type=registry,ref=<registry>/<cache-image>[,parameters...] \
  --cache-from type=registry,ref=<registry>/<cache-image> .

The following table describes the available CSV parameters that you can pass to --cache-to and --cache-from .

Name Option Type Default Description
ref cache-to , cache-from String  Full name of the cache image to import.
dest cache-to String  Path of the local directory where cache gets exported to.
mode cache-to min , max min Cache layers to export, see cache mode.
oci-mediatypes cache-to true , false true Use OCI media types in exported manifests, see OCI media types.
compression cache-to gzip , estargz , zstd gzip Compression type, see cache compression.
compression-level cache-to 0..22 Â Compression level, see cache compression.
force-compression cache-to true , false false Forcibly apply compression, see cache compression.

You can choose any valid value for ref , as long as it’s not the same as the target location that you push your image to. You might choose different tags (e.g. foo/bar:latest and foo/bar:build-cache ), separate image names (e.g. foo/bar and foo/bar-cache ), or even different repositories (e.g. docker.io/foo/bar and ghcr.io/foo/bar ). It’s up to you to decide the strategy that you want to use for separating your image from your cache images.

If the --cache-from target doesn’t exist, then the cache import step will fail, but the build will continue.

Further reading

For an introduction to caching see Optimizing builds with cache.

For more information on the registry cache backend, see the BuildKit README.

Read article

Continuous integration with Docker

Continuous integration with Docker

Continuous Integration (CI) is the part of the development process where you’re looking to get your code changes merged with the main branch of the project. At this point, development teams run tests and builds to vet that the code changes don’t cause any unwanted or unexpected behaviors.

Git branches about to get merged

There are several uses for Docker at this stage of development, even if you don’t end up packaging your application as a container image.

Docker as a build environment

Containers are reproducible, isolated environments that yield predictable results. Building and testing your application in a Docker container makes it easier to prevent unexpected behaviors from occurring. Using a Dockerfile, you define the exact requirements for the build environment, including programming runtimes, operating system, binaries, and more.

Using Docker to manage your build environment also eases maintenance. For example, updating to a new version of a programming runtime can be as simple as changing a tag or digest in a Dockerfile. No need to SSH into a pet VM to manually reinstall a newer version and update the related configuration files.

Additionally, just as you expect third-party open source packages to be secure, the same should go for your build environment. You can scan and index a builder image, just like you would for any other containerized application.

The following links provide instructions for how you can get started using Docker for building your applications in CI:

  • GitHub Actions
  • GitLab
  • Circle CI
  • Render

Docker in Docker

You can also use a Dockerized build environment to build container images using Docker. That is, your build environment runs inside a container which itself is equipped to run Docker builds. This method is referred to as “Docker in Docker”.

Docker provides an official Docker image that you can use for this purpose.

What’s next

Docker maintains a set of official GitHub Actions that you can use to build, annotate, and push container images on the GitHub Actions platform. See Introduction to GitHub Actions to learn more and get started.

Read article