I Hate Finding Great, Outdated Docker Images 🤬

How different CI platforms can build and push your Open Source Docker images — automatically and regularly.

DrPsychick
Level Up Coding
Published in
5 min readMay 14, 2021

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Nothing is worse than searching online for a Docker image that suits your current use case — only to find after several misleading links, that the image you want to use is “Last pushed: 3 years ago”…

The Best Docker Images

What do you look for when searching for a public docker image that suits your needs? I mean, what requirements should such an image meet?

I am assuming you did think about that when you last copy & pasted a docker image to your CI platform or Helm Chart or wherever you use it. If not, think about it now or next time. Simply because, although in a container, you are potentially executing code from someone else that may have nasty intentions.

What could be relevant

Do you require access to the source (Dockerfile) to validate and/or build it yourself?

Does it have to be recently built or built automatically? So that it contains recent versions of libraries and tools?

Must the CI pipeline run (and results) be publicly available as well, so that you can inspect and verify the build process?

Do you check the base images it depends on and what versions it uses? So that you can ensure compatibility and that it uses a recent base system?

Does size matter?

When was the last time you used secrets in a container, whose image you did not check 100% for malware?

How to build your public images

In order to answer your questions on how to identify public images that can be more trusted than others, let me show you how this process may look like — with and pointing to some practial examples.

Build your image

At the base of each Docker image is the Dockerfile. Below are just a few things I have learned while building images — by far not complete, so you have to look further on your own, there are tons of good sources and examples out there.

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individual curious human ✍️ writes about life lessons and IT topics 💡 learning every day 👩‍💻 works as catalyst in startups https://bit.ly/3hz7abR