[SOLVED] Install RPM package in a pre-built node image

Issue

I am writing a Node app I want to containerize using a pre-built node image (https://hub.docker.com/_/node/). I need to deploy application that I only have a RPM package for and I cannot figure out where to start finding documentation or a small example to do this.

The examples I'm looking at use yum, which I don't have (from my understanding) in the pre-built node image.

COPY src/MyApp/lib/3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm ./3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm

RUN yum localinstall 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm; yum clean all && \
    rm ./3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm

My other option is to use a CentOS docker image which has yum. But I'm running in to problems getting Node installed there trying to use NVM. But I'm also reading I shouldn't try to use NVM when building a Docker container and there is a better way.

Solution

You can use alien to convert packages from one format to another.

FROM node

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y alien
COPY src/MyApp/lib/3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm ./3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm
RUN alien -d -i 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm

This will leave a lot of extra files in your image. You can use two step build to clear it up.

FROM node AS builder

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y alien
COPY src/MyApp/lib/3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm ./3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm
RUN alien -d 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.rpm

FROM node

COPY --from=builder 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.deb .
RUN dpkg -i 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.deb && rm 3rdPartyApp.x86_64.deb

Answered By - kichik