Dockerfile for cloning private git repo

Question

I'm trying to clone private git repository from github. I did a Dockerfile like this:

FROM ubuntu:12.04

RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y git
RUN mkdir -p /root/.ssh/
ADD ./id_rsa /root/.ssh/id_rsa
RUN git clone [e-mail]:usr/repo.git

I use this repo with this key just fine locally, so it seems I'm missing something inside docker.

One more thing I may be missing is that both ~ and $HOME inside docker point to / instead of /root, but I'm not sure if that can be related.

Answer 1

RUN ssh-keyscan github.com >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

The keyscan works great since it accepts the host. The following complete answer worked:

RUN mkdir -p /root/.ssh
RUN cp /var/my-app/id_rsa /root/.ssh/id_rsa
RUN chmod 600 /root/.ssh/id_rsa
RUN ssh-keyscan github.com >> /root/.ssh/known_hosts

Also as mentioned:

RUN ssh -v [e-mail]

^ Great way to debug the flow. That's how I realized I needed the keyscan >> known_hosts

Answer 2

What's the output of the build process?

Random guess: try to chmod 600 the private key.

If it still doesn't work, try to RUN ssh -v [e-mail] (after adding the key); the output should explain what's happening.

Answer 3

(Will probably not fit your needs)

There is another approach: https://stackoverflow.com/a/29464430/990356

Go to Settings > Personal access tokens and generate a personal access token with repo scope enabled. Now you can do git clone https://[e-mail]/user-or-org/repo

Pros:

• very simple approach
• token can be easily revoked

Cons:

• if someone has access to the Dockerfile he has access to the token

To fix this, you can use an environment variable to store the token