How to generate a Dockerfile from an image?

Question

Is it possible to generate a Dockerfile from an image? I want to know for two reasons:

1. I can download images from the repository but would like to see the recipe that generated them.

2. I like the idea of saving snapshots, but once I am done it would be nice to have a structured format to review what was done.

Answer 1

You can use Portainer.io https://portainer.io/

It's a web app that runs inside a docker container used to manage all (almost) stuff about your containers. Even images recepies.

Answer 2

This is derived from @fallino's answer, with some adjustments and simplifications by using the output format option for docker history. Since macOS and Gnu/Linux have different command-line utilities, a different version is necessary for Mac. If you only need one or the other, you can just use those lines.

#!/bin/bash
case "$OSTYPE" in
    linux*)
        docker history --no-trunc --format "{{.CreatedBy}}" $1 | # extract information from layers
        tac                                                    | # reverse the file
        sed 's,^\(|3.*\)\?/bin/\(ba\)\?sh -c,RUN,'             | # change /bin/(ba)?sh calls to RUN
        sed 's,^RUN #(nop) *,,'                                | # remove RUN #(nop) calls for ENV,LABEL...
        sed 's,  *&&  *, \\\n \&\& ,g'                           # pretty print multi command lines following Docker best practices
    ;;
    darwin*)
        docker history --no-trunc --format "{{.CreatedBy}}" $1 | # extract information from layers
        tail -r                                                | # reverse the file
        sed -E 's,^(\|3.*)?/bin/(ba)?sh -c,RUN,'               | # change /bin/(ba)?sh calls to RUN
        sed 's,^RUN #(nop) *,,'                                | # remove RUN #(nop) calls for ENV,LABEL...
        sed $'s,  *&&  *, \\\ \\\n \&\& ,g'                      # pretty print multi command lines following Docker best practices
    ;;
    *)
        echo "unknown OSTYPE: $OSTYPE"
    ;;
esac

Answer 3

Update:

Quote from @aleung's comment:

centurylink/dockerfile-from-image doesn't work with new version docker. This one works for me: hub.docker.com/r/chenzj/dfimage

How to generate a Dockerfile from an image?

You can.

First way

$ docker pull centurylink/dockerfile-from-image
$ alias dfimage="docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock --rm centurylink/dockerfile-from-image"
$ dfimage --help
Usage: dockerfile-from-image.rb [options] <image_id>
    -f, --full-tree                  Generate Dockerfile for all parent layers
    -h, --help                       Show this message

Here is the example to generate the Dockerfile from an exist image selenium/node-firefox-debug

core@core-01 ~ $ docker pull centurylink/dockerfile-from-image
core@core-01 ~ $ alias dfimage="docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock --rm centurylink/dockerfile-from-image"
core@core-01 ~ $ dfimage selenium/node-firefox-debug
ADD file:b43bf069650bac07b66289f35bfdaf474b6b45cac843230a69391a3ee342a273 in /
RUN echo '#!/bin/sh' > /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d    && echo 'exit 101' >> /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d     && chmod +x /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d       && dpkg-divert --local --rename --add /sbin/initctl     && cp -a /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d /sbin/initctl    && sed -i 's/^exit.*/exit 0/' /sbin/initctl         && echo 'force-unsafe-io' > /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-apt-speedup         && echo 'DPkg::Post-Invoke { "rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/*.deb /var/cache/apt/*.bin || true"; };' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean   && echo 'APT::Update::Post-Invoke { "rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/*.deb /var/cache/apt/*.bin || true"; };' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean   && echo 'Dir::Cache::pkgcache ""; Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache "";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean      && echo 'Acquire::Languages "none";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-no-languages      && echo 'Acquire::GzipIndexes "true"; Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-gzip-indexes
RUN sed -i 's/^#\s*\(deb.*universe\)$/\1/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
CMD ["/bin/bash"]
MAINTAINER Selenium <[e-mail]>
RUN echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main universe\n" > /etc/apt/sources.list && echo "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty-updates main universe\n" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy --no-install-recommends install ca-certificates openjdk-7-jre-headless unzip wget && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && sed -i 's/\/dev\/urandom/\/dev\/.\/urandom/' ./usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/security/java.security
RUN mkdir -p /opt/selenium && wget --no-verbose http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/2.46/selenium-server-standalone-2.46.0.jar -O /opt/selenium/selenium-server-standalone.jar
RUN sudo useradd seluser --shell /bin/bash --create-home && sudo usermod -a -G sudo seluser && echo 'ALL ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL' >> /etc/sudoers && echo 'seluser:secret' | chpasswd
MAINTAINER Selenium <[e-mail]>
ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
ENV DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true
ENV TZ=US/Pacific
RUN echo "US/Pacific" | sudo tee /etc/timezone && dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy install xvfb && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
COPY file:335d2f6f9bfe311d2b38034ceab3b2ae2a1e07b9b203b330cac9857d6e17c148 in /opt/bin/entry_point.sh
RUN chmod +x /opt/bin/entry_point.sh
ENV SCREEN_WIDTH=1360
ENV SCREEN_HEIGHT=1020
ENV SCREEN_DEPTH=24
ENV DISPLAY=:99.0
USER [seluser]
CMD ["/opt/bin/entry_point.sh"]
MAINTAINER Selenium <[e-mail]>
USER [root]
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy --no-install-recommends install firefox && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
COPY file:52a2a815e3bb6b85c5adfbceaabb5665b63f63ef0fb0e3f774624ee399415f84 in /opt/selenium/config.json
USER [seluser]
MAINTAINER Selenium <[e-mail]>
USER [root]
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy install x11vnc && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && mkdir -p ~/.vnc && x11vnc -storepasswd secret ~/.vnc/passwd
ENV LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
ENV LANG=en_US.UTF-8
RUN locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 && dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive locales && apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy --no-install-recommends install language-pack-en && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy --no-install-recommends install fonts-ipafont-gothic xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-cyrillic xfonts-scalable && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN apt-get update -qqy && apt-get -qqy install fluxbox && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
COPY file:90e3a7f757c3df44d541b59234ad4ca996f799455eb8d426218619b244ebba68 in /opt/bin/entry_point.sh
RUN chmod +x /opt/bin/entry_point.sh
EXPOSE 5900/tcp

Another way, which you needn't pull the image to local and no command need be run.

Use above image as sample, you can get Dockerfile commands via below url:

https://imagelayers.io/?images=selenium%2Fnode-firefox-debug:latest

Wait for a while, there will be two windows, the up window lists the layers, the down window lists the command in Dockerfile

The URL format is:

https://imagelayers.io/?images=<USER>%2F<IMAGE>:<TAG>

In face, imagelayers.io is built by Centurylink

Answer 4

A bash solution :

docker history --no-trunc $argv  | tac | tr -s ' ' | cut -d " " -f 5- | sed 's,^/bin/sh -c #(nop) ,,g' | sed 's,^/bin/sh -c,RUN,g' | sed 's, && ,\n  & ,g' | sed 's,\s*[0-9]*[\.]*[0-9]*[kMG]*B\s*$,,g' | head -n -1

Step by step explanations:

tac : reverse the file
tr -s ' '                                       trim multiple whitespaces into 1
cut -d " " -f 5-                                remove the first fields (until X months/years ago)
sed 's,^/bin/sh -c #(nop) ,,g'                  remove /bin/sh calls for ENV,LABEL...
sed 's,^/bin/sh -c,RUN,g'                       remove /bin/sh calls for RUN
sed 's, && ,\n  & ,g'                           pretty print multi command lines following Docker best practices
sed 's,\s*[0-9]*[\.]*[0-9]*[kMG]*B\s*$,,g'      remove layer size information
head -n -1                                      remove last line ("SIZE COMMENT" in this case)

Example:

 ~  dih ubuntu:18.04
ADD file:28c0771e44ff530dba3f237024acc38e8ec9293d60f0e44c8c78536c12f13a0b in /
RUN set -xe
   &&  echo '#!/bin/sh' > /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
   &&  echo 'exit 101' >> /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
   &&  chmod +x /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
   &&  dpkg-divert --local --rename --add /sbin/initctl
   &&  cp -a /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d /sbin/initctl
   &&  sed -i 's/^exit.*/exit 0/' /sbin/initctl
   &&  echo 'force-unsafe-io' > /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/docker-apt-speedup
   &&  echo 'DPkg::Post-Invoke { "rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/*.deb /var/cache/apt/*.bin || true"; };' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean
   &&  echo 'APT::Update::Post-Invoke { "rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/*.deb /var/cache/apt/*.bin || true"; };' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean
   &&  echo 'Dir::Cache::pkgcache ""; Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache "";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean
   &&  echo 'Acquire::Languages "none";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-no-languages
   &&  echo 'Acquire::GzipIndexes "true"; Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-gzip-indexes
   &&  echo 'Apt::AutoRemove::SuggestsImportant "false";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-autoremove-suggests
RUN rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN sed -i 's/^#\s*\(deb.*universe\)$/\1/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
RUN mkdir -p /run/systemd
   &&  echo 'docker' > /run/systemd/container
CMD ["/bin/bash"]

Answer 5

Update Dec 2018 to BMW's answer

docker pull chenzj/dfimage
alias dfimage="docker run -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock --rm chenzj/dfimage"
dfimage IMAGE_ID > Dockerfile

Answer 6

To understand how a docker image was built, use the docker history --no-trunc command.

You can build a docker file from an image, but it will not contain everything you would want to fully understand how the image was generated. Reasonably what you can extract is the MAINTAINER, ENV, EXPOSE, VOLUME, WORKDIR, ENTRYPOINT, CMD, and ONBUILD parts of the dockerfile.

The following script should work for you:

#!/bin/bash
docker history --no-trunc "$1" | \
sed -n -e 's,.*/bin/sh -c #(nop) \(MAINTAINER .*[^ ]\) *0 B,\1,p' | \
head -1
docker inspect --format='{{range $e := .Config.Env}}
ENV {{$e}}
{{end}}{{range $e,$v := .Config.ExposedPorts}}
EXPOSE {{$e}}
{{end}}{{range $e,$v := .Config.Volumes}}
VOLUME {{$e}}
{{end}}{{with .Config.User}}USER {{.}}{{end}}
{{with .Config.WorkingDir}}WORKDIR {{.}}{{end}}
{{with .Config.Entrypoint}}ENTRYPOINT {{json .}}{{end}}
{{with .Config.Cmd}}CMD {{json .}}{{end}}
{{with .Config.OnBuild}}ONBUILD {{json .}}{{end}}' "$1"

I use this as part of a script to rebuild running containers as images: https://github.com/docbill/docker-scripts/blob/master/docker-rebase

The Dockerfile is mainly useful if you want to be able to repackage an image.

The thing to keep in mind, is a docker image can actually just be the tar backup of a real or virtual machine. I have made several docker images this way. Even the build history shows me importing a huge tar file as the first step in creating the image...