Prebuilt binaries for alpine

[bliu13]

Hi, I am trying to use the prebuilt version of oracledb in a docker environment, but I am not sure if I am able to use oracledb with alpine based images such as frolvlad/alpine-glibc.

Any advice on how I could proceed?

[danilohgds]

Hi @bliu13 ,

I`m not sure about those images in specific, but I do know that the binaries work with the RHEL 7 based images such as ones used by Openshift tool.

https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/3.4/using_images/s2i_images/nodejs.html

I think in your case it is just a matter of getting the linux prebuilt binaries and testing a sample application to see whether the image works well with it or not, which I see no reason for not working.

[cjbj]

@bliu13 try it and let us know how it goes.

[bliu13]

I have gotten oracledb to work using an image that uses glibc. Here is the Dockerfile that I am have.

FROM node:carbon

EXPOSE 3000

# Data service and all COPY actions will be stored under the service directory.
WORKDIR /service

# Setting the arguments for the environment variables.
# Will expect 'dev', 'tqa', 'stg', or 'prd' without quotes.
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31198835/can-we-pass-env-variables-through-cmd-line-while-building-a-docker-image-through
ARG NODE_ENV=
ENV NODE_ENV ${NODE_ENV}

COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install --only=production

COPY . .

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install libaio1 unzip

# Configuring Oracle Instant Client
RUN unzip instantclient_12_2.zip && \
  mv instantclient_12_2/ /usr/lib/ && \
  rm instantclient_12_2.zip && \
  ln /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2/libclntsh.so.12.1 /usr/lib/libclntsh.so && \
  ln /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2/libocci.so.12.1 /usr/lib/libocci.so && \
  ln /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2/libociei.so /usr/lib/libociei.so && \
  ln /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2/libnnz12.so /usr/lib/libnnz12.so

ENV ORACLE_BASE /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2
ENV LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2
ENV TNS_ADMIN /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2
ENV ORACLE_HOME /usr/lib/instantclient_12_2

RUN apt-get -y remove unzip && \
  apt-get clean

# Command to run when the container starts.
CMD ["node", "."]

I am trying to use Loopback to create micro services and I have the requirement to have it work with Oracle databases. Loopback uses loopback-connector-oracle, which depends on oracledb, which depends on Oracle Instant Client to be able to interact with Oracle databases. The resulting image size after building the container image is 1 gigabyte. Using an image that uses Alpine would really help in these kinds of situations.

I have found that the other database connectors for mysql, postgresql, sql server, don't have these kinds of complexities. I don't know anything about the software design choices that were made, but would it make sense to just build oracledb with whatever it needs from the Basic Instant Client? It honestly makes absolutely no sense have people register an account with Oracle just so we can use some sort of software to connect to their type of database.

[dmcghan]

@bliu13 Can you show us the output of docker history [image-name]?

[bliu13]

Here is the history

IMAGE               CREATED             CREATED BY                                      SIZE                COMMENT
4898a1dd689c        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  CMD ["node" "."]             0B
fb8f2c5e0700        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c apt-get -y remove unzip &&   apt-…   1.94MB
7cfe5098ca39        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/…   0B
785d38b41851        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV TNS_ADMIN=/usr/lib/in…   0B
2cfadb8c2195        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/…   0B
71b7e1ca0958        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV ORACLE_BASE=/usr/lib/…   0B
589182c5cfb9        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c unzip instantclient_12_2.zip &&  …   222MB
93c173ef2579        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install…   12.4MB
4be2c0d495a1        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) COPY dir:159f43924347518c5…   69.1MB
5049ce765eea        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c npm install --only=production        56.4MB
8079ef4e1ff1        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) COPY multi:af7f068a680223a…   141kB
5ec3643a15ec        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV NODE_ENV=dev             0B
48880ef8005e        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ARG NODE_ENV=                0B
c74760845d05        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  EXPOSE 3000                  0B
5cf1b6d2148f        2 hours ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) WORKDIR /service              0B
b87c2ad8344d        6 days ago          /bin/sh -c #(nop)  CMD ["node"]                 0B
<missing>           6 days ago          /bin/sh -c set -ex   && for key in     6A010…   4.17MB
<missing>           6 days ago          /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV YARN_VERSION=1.3.2       0B
<missing>           6 days ago          /bin/sh -c ARCH= && dpkgArch="$(dpkg --print…   56.9MB
<missing>           6 days ago          /bin/sh -c #(nop)  ENV NODE_VERSION=8.9.4       0B
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c set -ex   && for key in     94AE3…   129kB
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c groupadd --gid 1000 node   && use…   335kB
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c set -ex;  apt-get update;  apt-ge…   324MB
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install…   123MB
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c set -ex;  if ! command -v gpg > /…   0B
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c apt-get update && apt-get install…   44.6MB
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop)  CMD ["bash"]                 0B
<missing>           4 weeks ago         /bin/sh -c #(nop) ADD file:1dd78a123212328bd…   123MB

[dmcghan]

That looks to be about 1037MB...

If you follow the dependency tree for FROM node:carbon, you'll find it's based on debian, not alpine. That image gets quite large after all the installs it does: 676MB.

Though I understand your point on the OCI files, there's likely nothing we can do about that. Have you tried node:8-slim? That alone seems to shave 445MB (231MB uncompressed). That might work now that we have pre-built binaries.

[cjbj]

Also use Instant Client Basic Light and remove unnecessary libraries (e.g. JDBC etc). The required libs are given in https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/12.2/lnoci/instant-client.html#GUID-E436205F-2A39-45AC-BD28-969D4B74128B

OCI provides all of the key functionality for DB access and lets us reuse that functionality across all Oracle client applications.

[dmcghan]

You could also look into multi-stage builds. This could help if you need some builds but don't want to include the stuff needed to do the build in the final build.

[bliu13]

@dmcghan Thank you for all the suggestions. Using "node:carbon-slim" cut down the final image to 447 MB and I will look into multi-stage builds.

@cjbj Thank you for the suggestion, I switched to the Instant Client Basic Light which reduced the amount of data needed to copy around. Serious question though, is it really unlikely that the OCI files can be included with oracledb, and be hosted on npm repository? Is it a licensing issue, technical challenge, or policy?

I really appreciate the help.

[cjbj]

It's a licensing issue.

[bliu13]

@cjbj Ok, my sympathies. Thanks for the help.