Docker follow symlink outside context

Question

Yet another Docker symlink question. I have a bunch of files that I want to copy over to all my Docker builds. My dir structure is:

parent_dir
    - common_f         


        

Answer 1

That is not possible and will not be implemented. Please have a look at the discussion on github issue #1676:

We do not allow this because it's not repeatable. A symlink on your machine is the not the same as my machine and the same Dockerfile would produce two different results. Also having symlinks to /etc/paasswd would cause issues because it would link the host files and not your local files.