Building a OCI Image#

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a OCI image for a simple web server written in Go, using a multi-stage build process. The Dockerfile consists of two stages: a build stage and a run stage. For more information on multi-stage and other oci optimizations refer to Optimize OCI Image Builds

Prerequisites#

OCI installed on your machine, please refer to OCI Engine Installation Guide

Step 1: Preparing the Go Source Code#

Create a directory named src in your project folder. Inside this src directory, create a file named server.go with the following content:

package main

import (
   "log"
   "net/http"
)

func main() {
   http.HandleFunc("/", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
      log.Println("Received request:", r.URL.Path)
      w.Write([]byte("Hello from OCI!"))
   })
   log.Println("Starting server on port 8080")
   err := http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil)
   if err != nil {
      log.Fatal("ListenAndServe: ", err)
   }
}

Step 2: Writing the Dockerfile#

In your project directory, create a file named Dockerfile with the following content:

# Stage 1: Build stage
FROM golang:alpine as build-stage
WORKDIR /app
# Copy the Go source code
COPY src/server.go server.go
# Compile the server
RUN go build server.go

# Stage 2: Run stage
FROM alpine
# Copy the compiled server from the build stage
COPY --from=build-stage /app/server /server
# Expose the port the server listens on
EXPOSE 8080
# Command to run the server
CMD ["/server"]

Explanation#

Build Stage: The first stage uses golang:alpine as the base image. It copies the server.go file from the local src directory and compiles it.
Run Stage: The second stage uses a lightweight alpine image. It copies the compiled server executable from the first stage and sets the server to listen on port 8080.

Step 3: Building the OCI Image#

Run the following command in your project directory:

$ podman build -t my-go-server .

This command builds the OCI image with the tag my-go-server.

Step 4: Running the Container#

Once the image is built, run it using:

$ podman run -d -p 8080:8080 --name my-go-server  my-go-server

This command runs the container, mapping port 8080 of the host to port 8080 of the container. The -d flags makes podman to run the container in the background without attaching the shell into it. For more information about the OCI commands and its options visit the official reference.

Verification#

To verify if the container is running in your machine in the shell do:

$ podman ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                    COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS          PORTS                                       NAMES
3f3ba02d7732   my-go-server             "/server"                14 seconds ago   Up 12 seconds   0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp, :::8080->8080/tcp   my-go-server

You can also navigate to http://localhost:8080 in a web browser. You should see the message “Hello from OCI!”.

Logging#

To check the logs you can run the command:

$ podman logs my-go-server
2013/03/01 00:00:00 Starting server on port 8080

And with that you verify that the server has started.

Getting into the container#

You are also able to jump into the container and execute commands there and for example check the contents of the files:

$ podman exec -it my-go-server bash
/ \# ls
bin     etc     lib     mnt     proc    run     server  sys     usr
dev     home    media   opt     root    sbin    srv     tmp     var
/ \#

VSCode#

If you went for docker installation this is also possible using the docker extensions in vscode. Please refer to How to use VSCode Docker extension for Dockerfile development