ADD failed: stat /var/lib/docker/tmp/docker-builderXXXXXX: no such file or directory

[mauri870]

• This is a bug report
• This is a feature request
• I searched existing issues before opening this one

Expected behavior

COPY/ADD should work with absolute paths

Actual behavior

An error occur when trying to ADD/COPY with an absolute path

Sending build context to Docker daemon  90.62kB
Step 1/2 : FROM alpine:latest
 ---> 02674b9cb179
Step 2/2 : ADD /tmp /tmp
ADD failed: stat /var/lib/docker/tmp/docker-builder310665597/tmp: no such file or directory

Steps to reproduce the behavior

FROM alpine:latest
ADD /tmp /tmp # COPY fails too

Output of docker version:

Client:
 Version:      17.06.0-ce
 API version:  1.30
 Go version:   go1.8.3
 Git commit:   3dfb8343
 Built:        Wed Jul 26 18:03:33 2017
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

Server:
 Version:      17.06.0-ce
 API version:  1.30 (minimum version 1.12)
 Go version:   go1.8.3
 Git commit:   02c1d87617
 Built:        Wed Jul 26 20:03:39 2017
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64
 Experimental: false

Output of docker info:

Containers: 0
 Running: 0
 Paused: 0
 Stopped: 0
Images: 162
Server Version: 17.06.0-ce
Storage Driver: aufs
 Root Dir: /var/lib/docker/aufs
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Dirs: 316
 Dirperm1 Supported: true
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins: 
 Volume: local
 Network: bridge host macvlan null overlay
 Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file logentries splunk syslog
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Init Binary: docker-init
containerd version: cfb82a876ecc11b5ca0977d1733adbe58599088a
runc version: 2d41c047c83e09a6d61d464906feb2a2f3c52aa4
init version: 949e6fa
Security Options:
 seccomp
  Profile: default
Kernel Version: 4.12.7-1-MANJARO
Operating System: Manjaro Linux
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 8
Total Memory: 15.6GiB
Name: mauri870-pc
ID: 7CHC:HTHK:NHE6:EF7M:F4SU:2GNG:SGX4:XGFG:FSKF:26LD:O5YX:H5GN
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): false
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
 127.0.0.0/8
Live Restore Enabled: false

Additional environment details (AWS, VirtualBox, physical, etc.)
Physical. Seems to be related with docker/for-mac#1922

[dnephin]

Paths in a Dockerfile are always relative to the the context directory. The context directory is the positional argument passed to docker build (often .).

If there is no ./tmp in the context directory then this is the expected behaviour.

[mauri870]

@dnephin This behavior has been introduced recently? Because I remember using absolute paths in my Dockerfiles without problems 😕

[dnephin]

I believe it has always been this way.

[mauri870]

Thanks for your help @dnephin

[janmchan]

Why is the context still in the tmp folder when I specified the actual path and not .?

[qbikez]

@janmchan I had exactly the same problem with dotnet and docker. Turned out that the directory I was trying to COPY was ignored by .dockerignore (which in turn was generated by dotnet itself). Once I changed .dockerignore, everything worked.

[netspark]

@qbikez, how did you change the .dockerignore file?
I have it like this:

*
!obj/Docker/empty/

and is still giving the same copy error

[qbikez]

@netspark Mine looks like this:

*
!obj/Docker/publish/*
!obj/Docker/empty/

So everything besides obj/Docker/publish/* and obj/Docker/empty/ is ignored. By default, the generated Dockerfile does:

COPY ${source:-obj/Docker/publish} .

So it copies from a directory that's not ignored and everything is fine. But, if in your Dockerfile you have a COPY that uses any other directory, like COPY bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.0/ . (or if you set source arg to something else), then docker will say "no such file or directory", because bin/Debug/netcoreapp2.0/ is ignored (thanks to the wildcard * in .dockerignore.

If you're unsure of what is ignored or is this the cause at all, you can just try and remove .dockerignore. Docker may build a little slower, but there will be one moving part less to worry about.

[AshtonHylton-awin]

This happened to me when trying to run the docker file from a different directory.

I had the COPY failed: stat /var/lib/docker/tmp/docker-builder929708051/XXXX: no such file or directory and managed to resolve this by specifying the docker file.

Running docker build . -f docker/development/Dockerfile worked.

But running Running docker build docker/development/Dockerfile` caused this issue.

-f or --file to specify the name and location of the Dockerfile.

It found it strange at first because when i had the Dockerfile in the apps root directory it worked fine. This will help if you want to manage your environment docker files a little better.

[tomas-wood]

I'm getting same behavior from COPY ./pytorch /app/pytorch