How to copy folders to docker image from Dockerfile?

Question

I tried the following command in my Dockerfile: COPY * / and got mighty surprised at the result. Seems the naive docker code traverses the directories from the glob

Answer 1

I don't completely understand the case of the original poster but I can proof that it's possible to copy directory structure using COPY in Dockerfile.

Suppose you have this folder structure:

folder1
  file1.html
  file2.html
folder2
  file3.html
  file4.html
  subfolder
    file5.html
    file6.html

To copy it to the destination image you can use such a Dockerfile content:

FROM nginx

COPY ./folder1/ /usr/share/nginx/html/folder1/
COPY ./folder2/ /usr/share/nginx/html/folder2/

RUN ls -laR /usr/share/nginx/html/*

The output of docker build . as follows:

$ docker build --no-cache .
Sending build context to Docker daemon  9.728kB
Step 1/4 : FROM nginx
 ---> 7042885a156a
Step 2/4 : COPY ./folder1/ /usr/share/nginx/html/folder1/
 ---> 6388fd58798b
Step 3/4 : COPY ./folder2/ /usr/share/nginx/html/folder2/
 ---> fb6c6eacf41e
Step 4/4 : RUN ls -laR /usr/share/nginx/html/*
 ---> Running in face3cbc0031
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  494 Dec 25 09:56 /usr/share/nginx/html/50x.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  612 Dec 25 09:56 /usr/share/nginx/html/index.html

/usr/share/nginx/html/folder1:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file1.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file2.html

/usr/share/nginx/html/folder2:
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file3.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file4.html
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:33 subfolder

/usr/share/nginx/html/folder2/subfolder:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:33 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jan 16 10:43 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file5.html
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7 Jan 16 10:32 file6.html
Removing intermediate container face3cbc0031
 ---> 0e0062afab76
Successfully built 0e0062afab76