How do you add items to .dockerignore?

Question

I'm not able to find many examples of what a .dockerignore file should look like.

Using puppet to install a few packages on a docker container causes the image to explode from 600MB to 3GB. I'm trying to use a .dockerignore file to keep the size to a minumum

$ cat Dockerfile  
FROM centos:centos6

#Work around selinux problem on cent images
RUN yum install -y --enablerepo=centosplus libselinux-devel

RUN yum install -y wget git tar openssh-server; yum -y clean all

Add Puppetfile / 
RUN librarian-puppet install
RUN puppet apply --modulepath=/modules -e "class { 'buildslave': jenkins_slave => true,}"
RUN librarian-puppet clean

If I run docker images --tree I can see that the image instantlly grows by several GB

$ docker images --tree
                ├─e289570b5555 Virtual Size: 387.7 MB
                │ └─a7646acf90d0 Virtual Size: 442.5 MB
                │   └─d7bc6e1fbe43 Virtual Size: 442.5 MB
                │     └─772e6b204e3b Virtual Size: 627.5 MB
                │       └─599a7b5226f4 Virtual Size: 627.5 MB
                │         └─9fbffccda8bd Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │           └─ee46af013f6b Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │             └─3e4fe065fd07 Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │               └─de9ec3eba39e Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │                 └─31cba2716a12 Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │                   └─52cbc742d3c4 Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │                     └─9a857380258c Virtual Size: 2.943 GB
                │                       └─c6d87a343807 Virtual Size: 2.964 GB
                │                         └─f664124e0080 Virtual Size: 2.964 GB
                │                           └─e6cc212038b9 Virtual Size: 2.964 GB Tags: foo/jenkins-centos6-buildslave:latest

I believe the reason that the image grows so large, is because librarian-puppet clones a puppet module to /modules which breaks the build cache

I've tried the following .dockerignore files with no luck.

$ cat .dockerignore
/modules
/modules/
/modules/*

Is this the correct syntax for a .dockerignore file?
Are there any other ways to prevent these containers from growing so large?

Additional information:

http://kartar.net/2013/12/building-puppet-apps-inside-docker/
http://danielmartins.ninja/posts/a-week-of-docker.html

Answer 1

Neither:

modules/*

nor

modules

would not work for me, docker kept on polluting the image with unnecessary files until I set it like this:

**/modules

also works with:

**/modules/*.py

Answer 2

I think the best solution for your use case is to use a Multi-stage build in your docker file. Your Dockerfile must be in an empty directory, and you run puppet in a disposable container.

From the link above:

With multi-stage builds, you use multiple FROM statements in your Dockerfile. Each FROM instruction can use a different base, and each of them begins a new stage of the build. You can selectively copy artifacts from one stage to another, leaving behind everything you don’t want in the final image.