alpine

A minimal Docker image based on Alpine Linux with a complete package index and only 5 MB in size!

GitHub repo: https://github.com/gliderlabs/docker-alpine

Library reference

This content is imported from the official Docker Library docs, and is provided by the original uploader. You can view the Docker Store page for this image at https://store.docker.com/images/alpine

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

• 3.6, latest (versions/library-3.6/x86_64/Dockerfile)
• edge (versions/library-edge/x86_64/Dockerfile)
• 3.1 (versions/library-3.1/Dockerfile)
• 3.2 (versions/library-3.2/Dockerfile)
• 3.3 (versions/library-3.3/Dockerfile)
• 3.4 (versions/library-3.4/Dockerfile)
• 3.5 (versions/library-3.5/Dockerfile)

Quick reference

• Where to get help:
  the Docker Community Forums, the Docker Community Slack, or Stack Overflow

• Where to file issues:
  https://github.com/gliderlabs/docker-alpine/issues

• Maintained by:
  Glider Labs (an Alpine community contributor)

• Supported architectures: (more info)
  amd64, arm32v6, arm64v8, i386, ppc64le, s390x

• Published image artifact details:
  repo-info repo’s repos/alpine/ directory (history)
  (image metadata, transfer size, etc)

• Image updates:
  official-images PRs with label library/alpine
  official-images repo’s library/alpine file (history)

• Source of this description:
  docs repo’s alpine/ directory (history)

• Supported Docker versions:
  the latest release (down to 1.6 on a best-effort basis)

What is Alpine Linux?

Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution built around musl libc and BusyBox. The image is only 5 MB in size and has access to a package repository that is much more complete than other BusyBox based images. This makes Alpine Linux a great image base for utilities and even production applications. Read more about Alpine Linux here and you can see how their mantra fits in right at home with Docker images.

How to use this image

Usage

Use like you would any other base image:

FROM alpine:3.5
RUN apk add --no-cache mysql-client
ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]

This example has a virtual image size of only 36.5MB. Compare that to our good friend Ubuntu:

FROM ubuntu:16.04
RUN apt-get update \
    && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends mysql-client \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
ENTRYPOINT ["mysql"]

This yields us a virtual image size of about 184MB image.

Documentation

This image is well documented. Check out the documentation at Viewdocs.