rebuild docker image from specific step

Question

I have the below Dockerfile.

FROM ubuntu:14.04
MAINTAINER Samuel Alexander 

RUN          


        

Answer 1

A simpler technique.

Dockerfile:
Add this line where you want the caching to start being skipped.

COPY marker /dev/null

Then build using

date > marker && docker build .

Answer 2

Another option is to delete the cached intermediate image you want to rebuild.

Find the hash of the intermediate image you wish to rebuild in your build output:

Step 27/42 : RUN lolarun.sh
 ---> Using cache
 ---> 328dfe03e436

Then delete that image:

$ docker image rmi 328dfe03e436

Or if it gives you an error and you're okay with forcing it:

$ docker image rmi -f 328dfe03e436

Finally, rerun your build command, and it will need to restart from that point because it's not in the cache.

Answer 3

As there is no official way to do this, the most simple way is to temporarily change the specific RUN command to include something harmless like echo:

RUN echo && apt-get -qq update && \
    apt-get install nano

After building remove it.

Answer 4

To complete Dmitry's answer, you can use uniq arg like date +%s to keep always same commanline

docker build --build-arg DUMMY=`date +%s` -t me/myapp:1.0.0

Dockerfile:

...
ARG DUMMY=unknown
RUN DUMMY=${DUMMY} git clone xxx
...

Answer 5

You can rebuild the entire thing without using the cache by doing a

docker build --no-cache -t user/image-name

To force a rerun starting at a specific line, you can pass an arg that is otherwise unused. Docker passes ARG values as environment variables to your RUN command, so changing an ARG is a change to the command which breaks the cache. It's not even necessary to define it yourself on the RUN line.

FROM ubuntu:14.04
MAINTAINER Samuel Alexander <samuel@alexander.com>

RUN apt-get -y install software-properties-common
RUN apt-get -y update

# Install Java.
RUN echo oracle-java8-installer shared/accepted-oracle-license-v1-1 select true | debconf-set-selections
RUN add-apt-repository -y ppa:webupd8team/java
RUN apt-get -y update
RUN apt-get install -y oracle-java8-installer
RUN rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN rm -rf /var/cache/oracle-jdk8-installer

# Define working directory.
WORKDIR /work

# Define commonly used JAVA_HOME variable
ENV JAVA_HOME /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle

# JAVA PATH
ENV PATH /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin:$PATH

# Install maven
RUN apt-get -y update
RUN apt-get -y install maven

# Install Open SSH and git
RUN apt-get -y install openssh-server
RUN apt-get -y install git

# clone Spark
RUN git clone https://github.com/apache/spark.git
WORKDIR /work/spark
RUN mvn -DskipTests clean package

# clone and build zeppelin fork, changing INCUBATOR_VER will break the cache here
ARG INCUBATOR_VER=unknown
RUN git clone https://github.com/apache/incubator-zeppelin.git
WORKDIR /work/incubator-zeppelin
RUN mvn clean package -Pspark-1.6 -Phadoop-2.6 -DskipTests

# Install Supervisord
RUN apt-get -y install supervisor
RUN mkdir -p var/log/supervisor

# Configure Supervisord
COPY conf/supervisord.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/supervisord.conf

# bash
RUN sed -i s#/home/git:/bin/false#/home/git:/bin/bash# /etc/passwd

EXPOSE 8080 8082
CMD ["/usr/bin/supervisord"]

And then just run it with a unique arg:

docker build --build-arg INCUBATOR_VER=20160613.2 -t user/image-name .

To change the argument with every build, you can pass a timestamp as the arg:

docker build --build-arg INCUBATOR_VER=$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S) -t user/image-name .

or:

docker build --build-arg INCUBATOR_VER=$(date +%s) -t user/image-name .

---

As an aside, I'd recommend the following changes to keep your layers smaller, the more you can merge the cleanup and delete steps on a single RUN command after the download and install, the smaller your final image will be. Otherwise your layers will include all the intermediate steps between the download and cleanup:

FROM ubuntu:14.04
MAINTAINER Samuel Alexander <samuel@alexander.com>

RUN DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    apt-get -y install software-properties-common && \
    apt-get -y update

# Install Java.
RUN echo oracle-java8-installer shared/accepted-oracle-license-v1-1 select true | debconf-set-selections && \
    add-apt-repository -y ppa:webupd8team/java && \
    apt-get -y update && \
    DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    apt-get install -y oracle-java8-installer && \
    apt-get clean && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && \
    rm -rf /var/cache/oracle-jdk8-installer && \

# Define working directory.
WORKDIR /work

# Define commonly used JAVA_HOME variable
ENV JAVA_HOME /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle

# JAVA PATH
ENV PATH /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin:$PATH

# Install maven
RUN apt-get -y update && \
    DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
    apt-get -y install 
      maven \
      openssh-server \
      git \
      supervisor && \
    apt-get clean && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# clone Spark
RUN git clone https://github.com/apache/spark.git
WORKDIR /work/spark
RUN mvn -DskipTests clean package

# clone and build zeppelin fork
ARG INCUBATOR_VER=unknown
RUN git clone https://github.com/apache/incubator-zeppelin.git
WORKDIR /work/incubator-zeppelin
RUN mvn clean package -Pspark-1.6 -Phadoop-2.6 -DskipTests

# Configure Supervisord
RUN mkdir -p var/log/supervisor
COPY conf/supervisord.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/supervisord.conf

# bash
RUN sed -i s#/home/git:/bin/false#/home/git:/bin/bash# /etc/passwd

EXPOSE 8080 8082
CMD ["/usr/bin/supervisord"]

Answer 6

One workaround:

1. Locate the step you want to execute from.
2. Before that step put a simple dummy operation like "RUN pwd"

Then just build your Dockerfile. It will take everything up to that step from the cache and then execute the lines after the dummy command.