Allow to upload Dockerfile or provide repository URL with Dockerfile

[KES777]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Want to add container and can not upload Dockerfile like I can do that with Add stack

Describe the solution you'd like

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been marked as stale as it has not had recent activity, it will be closed if no further activity occurs in the next 7 days. If you believe that it has been incorrectly labelled as stale, leave a comment and the label will be removed.

[KES777]

Was this reviewed?

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been marked as stale as it has not had recent activity, it will be closed if no further activity occurs in the next 7 days. If you believe that it has been incorrectly labelled as stale, leave a comment and the label will be removed.

[paulens12]

I don't think you can upload a Dockerfile to a stack. That button in your screenshot is for a docker-compose.yaml, not a Dockerfile.

[KES777]

@paulens12 Screenshots to compare. When I just create Container, there is not such buttons as they are for stack.

[paulens12]

@paulens12 Screenshots to compare. When I just create Container, there is not such buttons as they are for stack.

I know. I'm saying you CANNOT upload a Dockerfile using those buttons.

[KES777]

@paulens12
Yes. This issue is about such button, which allow me to upload a Dockerfile ;-)

[paulens12]

@KES777
Do you mean you want Portainer to build an image for you? Even if you had a button to upload a Dockerfile, you would still have to fill out everything else, such as your volume mounts and network configuration, by hand, because that's not part of an image.

I honestly don't think that makes sense. If you want to build and run your own Docker image without publishing it to a registry, you can set up a private registry just for yourself and publish the image there. Or you could request a feature to upload a .tar file with the image exported from the machine that built it. Either way, building images and running containers are two completely different concepts and I don't think Portainer should bother with both of them when it's clearly made only for running containers.

[KES777]

@paulens12 Hm... Portainer already builds images if I provide link to repository with docker-compose.yaml which refers Dockerfile.

Why it is not possible to build and run when I just upload single Dockerfile?

[paulens12]

that's interesting, I didn't know you could do that... anyway, it can't just build a Dockerfile if you upload it as a single file because it lacks the build context. That workflow would also prevent you from updating the container when you make updates to your Dockerfile and/or build context. Providing a git repo with a Dockerfile and the right build context is more feasible, but even then it feels like a weird corner case.

[KES777]

With Dockerfile it could be possible to build in empty context, eg. some folder created by portainer. There is no much differences for portainer: run docker compose up or docker build. How it would be useful, let it up to user.

Anyway it could be implemented via setting up environment variable, like it was done for stack:

DOCKER_CONTEXT=/path/to/context;
cd $DOCKER_CONTEXT; docker build ...

Technically this is not complex to implement, but it is very handy and opens wide range of perspectives.

[KES777]

Error related to this issue:

docker-compose.yaml

services:
  mailserver:
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: docker.io/mailserver/docker-mailserver:latest
    container_name: mailserver
    hostname: mail
    domainname: mail.office
    env_file: $STACK_ROOT/s-mail/mailserver.env

File exists:

# ls /root/data/s-mail | grep mailserver.env
mailserver.env

[KES777]

Hm... Ok. I checked on host machine, but portainer is looking for that path inside container. portainers volume is mounted to XX folder. There I can find: compose/NN/docker-compose.yml file, where NN is stack number. I commented out line with env_file, deployed the stack, then uncomment line with env_file and change it to: env_file: mailserver.env. I get error:

So I put this mailserver.env file to compose directory by running next command on host cp /root/data/s-mail/mailserver.env /root/data/portainer/compose/22/

Where /root/data/portainer is path to portainer volume from docker volume create command.
Where 22 is ID assigned by portainer to my stack.

Would be nice if portainer extracts name for stack from docker-compose file.
Would be nice if portainer supports uploading .tar.gz files for Upload from you computer button. (where .tar.gz contains: docker-compose.yml, mailserver.env, stack.env)

[KES777]

Seems related: #7796

[jamescarppe]

I'm not sure if I fully understand this issue as you've outlined it here, but if you want to build an image from a Dockerfile in Portainer you can do so through the Images page - click Images then Build a new image. Our documentation goes into more detail.

As another commenter has mentioned, the Dockerfile on it's own doesn't provide the context needed to create a container. We can process it when it is included in a compose file from a registry because that compose file is what is providing the context for the image that will be built from the Dockerfile in order to create a running container from that image.

For your pathing issues, our relative path volumes feature may help here.