docker-npm-build

This is a base image for building node.js npm repositories.

Purpose

This docker image builds on top of a base Alpine Linux image for the purpose of building projects using npm. It provides several key features:

• Access to the build location will be in the volume located at /code. This directory will be the default working directory.
• The npm bin directory is automatically included in PATH using the relative node_modules/.bin directory.

Usage

This library is useful with simple package.json's from the command line. For example:

docker run --interactive --tty --rm --volume /tmp/my-code:/code nubs/npm-build

# Using short-options:
# docker run -i -t --rm -v /tmp/my-code:/code nubs/npm-build

This will execute the default command (npm install) and update your code directory with the result (i.e., node_modules).

Other commands can also be executed. For example, to update dependencies:

docker run -i -t --rm -v /tmp/my-code:/code nubs/npm-build npm update

Permissions

This image runs as root (PID 0), but for security purposes it is recommended to use Docker's [user namespace functionality][docker-user-namespaces] to map that to a non-privileged user on your host system.

If you use volume mounting of your project (e.g., to run npm install inside the container but want to modify the host node_modules directory), then you may run into permission issues.

Without Docker's user namespaces, the container will create files/directories with root ownership on your host which may cause issues when trying to access them as a non-root user.

When using Docker's user namespaces, the container will be running under a different user. You may have to adjust permissions on the directory to allow the user to create/modify files. For example, giving an /etc/setuid and /etc/subgid that contains dockremap:165536:65536 and a docker daemon running using this default mapping: docker daemon --userns-remap=default, you would need to run the following to give the container access to run npm install and yourself access to do so on the host:

groupadd --gid 165536 subgid-root
chmod -R g+w node_modules
chgrp -R subgid-root node_modules
usermod -a -G subgid-root "$(whoami)"

Dockerfile build

Alternatively, you can create your own Dockerfile that builds on top of this image. This allows you to modify the environment by installing additional software needed, altering the commands to run, etc.

A simple one that just installs another package but leaves the rest of the process alone could look like this:

FROM nubs/npm-build

RUN pacman --sync --noconfirm --noprogressbar --quiet somepackage

You can then build this docker image and run it against your package.json volume like normal (this example assumes the package.json and Dockerfile are in your current directory):

docker build --tag my-code .
docker run -i -t --rm -v "$(pwd):/code" my-code
docker run -i -t --rm -v "$(pwd):/code" my-code npm update

License

docker-npm-build is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for the full license text.