Application Setup
Dockerfile

The Dockerfile describes the steps you need to build and run your application.

  • FROM defines the base image for your application.
  • COPY moves files from the local directory into the image.
  • RUN executes a command.
  • ENTRYPOINT defines a command prefix that should be prepended to any command run on this image.
  • CMD defines the default command to start application.
  • ARG allows you to specify build-time variables.

ARG

Convox respects the ARG Dockerfile directive, allowing you to specify build-time variables to be populated.

This is useful for creating dynamic build environments, allowing you to do things like: - building differently in production and development environments - specifying environment variables that should be used during a build, but should not be present in the Dockerfile itself or in the resulting image.

Warning: It is not recommended to use build-time variables for passing secrets. Build-time variable values are visible to any user of the image with the docker history command.

You can declare a build argument in the Dockerfile, with either a default value or an empty one:

ARG BUNDLE_WITHOUT="development:test"
ARG RAILS_ENV

You can send a value (or set an empty value, as below) to be applied during remote builds on your Rack by setting it with convox env:

$ convox env set BUNDLE_WITHOUT=none --promote
$ convox deploy

See also