Tag: Make

Like source code, Docker images are required to be built, tested and deployed before they can become containers.

While Docker doesn’t have a build framework, you can take advantage of Make to automate the build process across different environments. By using Make you can have a consistent and shared approach to managing your Docker images without the overhead of using task managers such as gulp.

To execute commands you need a Makefile. The Makefile contains a list of targets that define the commands and arguments required to be executed in order for a particular task to be performed, such as building a Docker image.

The contents of a Makefile might look like this:

build:
    docker build -t benhall/docker-make-example .

With this in your project’s root directory, executing the command `make build` will now build the container image.

A Makefile can define multiple targets reflecting different actions. The template below demonstrates a useful Makefile template covering the common scenario’s for managing Docker images.

NAME = benhall/docker-make-demo

default: build

build:
    docker build -t $(NAME) .

push:
    docker push $(NAME)

debug:
    docker run --rm -it $(NAME) /bin/bash

run:
    docker run --rm $(NAME)

release: build push

Learn Docker and Makefiles via Scrapbook, an Interactive Learning Environment.