|
| 1 | +Python 3.14 container image - minimal version |
| 2 | +============================================ |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +This container image is a special version of the [full Python 3.14 container image](https://github.com/sclorg/s2i-python-container/tree/master/3.14) |
| 5 | +provided as a [S2I](https://github.com/openshift/source-to-image) base image for your Python 3.14 applications. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +Because the minimal and full images work similarly, we document here only the differences and limitations |
| 8 | +of the minimal container image. For the documentation of common features see the [full container image docs](https://github.com/sclorg/s2i-python-container/tree/master/3.14). |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +The Python 3.14 minimal container image is currently considered a tech-preview and only available on quay.io. |
| 11 | +The image is built on top of the [official CentOS Stream base containers](quay.io/centos/centos). |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +To pull the Python 3.14 minimal container image to build on, run |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +``` |
| 16 | +podman pull quay.io/fedora/python-314-minimal |
| 17 | +``` |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +Description |
| 20 | +----------- |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +The full container image is a universal base image to build your containerized applications on top of. However, its universal nature |
| 23 | +means that the resulting containers it produces consume a lot of disk space. This is caused mainly by the fact that the image contains |
| 24 | +npm, compilers, header files and some other packages one might need to install and deploy their applications. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +Because size does matter for us and our customers, we have prepared this minimal container image with very limited subset |
| 27 | +of installed packages. There are no compilers, no header files, no npm etc and the yum package manager is replaced with a minimalistic |
| 28 | +reimplementation called microdnf, making the resulting container images much smaller. This creates some limitations |
| 29 | +but we provide ways to workaround them. |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +Limitations |
| 32 | +----------- |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +1. There is only a very limited subset of packages installed. They are choosen carefully to satisfy most of the Python apps but your app might have some special needs. |
| 35 | +1. There is no npm and nodejs. |
| 36 | +1. There are no compilers and header files. Installation from Python wheels should still work but compilation from a source code is not supported out of the box. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +In the next chapter, we provide three possible workarounds for the mentioned limitations of the minimal container image. |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +Possible solutions for the limitations |
| 41 | +-------------------------------------- |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +### Use the full container image |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +It's easy at that. If you don't want to write your own Dockerfile and disk space is not a problem, use |
| 46 | +the full universal container image and you should be fine. |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +### Build your own container image on top of the minimal container image |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +Let's say that your application depends on uwsgi. uwsgi cannot be installed from Python wheel and has to be |
| 51 | +compiled from source which requires some additional packages to be installed - namely gcc for the compilation |
| 52 | +itself and python3.14-devel containing Python header files. |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +To solve that problem, you can use all the pieces provided by the minimal container image and just add one more |
| 55 | +step to install the missing dependencies: |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +``` |
| 58 | +FROM python-314-minimal |
| 59 | +
|
| 60 | +# Add application sources to a directory that the assemble script expects them |
| 61 | +# and set permissions so that the container runs without root access |
| 62 | +USER 0 |
| 63 | +ADD app-src /tmp/src |
| 64 | +RUN /usr/bin/fix-permissions /tmp/src |
| 65 | +
|
| 66 | +# Install packages necessary for compiling uwsgi from source |
| 67 | +RUN microdnf install -y gcc python3.14-devel |
| 68 | +USER 1001 |
| 69 | +
|
| 70 | +# Install the dependencies |
| 71 | +RUN /usr/libexec/s2i/assemble |
| 72 | +
|
| 73 | +# Set the default command for the resulting image |
| 74 | +CMD /usr/libexec/s2i/run |
| 75 | +``` |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | +If you do it this way, your problem with the missing packages is solved. But there is also one disadvantage: the resulting |
| 78 | +runtime image contains unnecessary compiler and Python header files. How to solve this? Uninstalling them at the end |
| 79 | +of the Dockerfile is not really a solution but we have one. Keep reading. |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +### Build on full image, run on minimal image |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | +Did you know that you can copy files from one image to another one during a build? That's the feature we are gonna use now. |
| 84 | +We use the full container image with all compilers and other usefull packages installed to build our app and its dependencies |
| 85 | +and we then move the result including the whole virtual environemnt to the minimal container image. |
| 86 | + |
| 87 | +This app needs mod_wsgi and to install (compile it from source) it, we'll need: httpd-devel for header files, gcc and redhat-rpm-config |
| 88 | +as a compiler and configuratuion and finally python3.14-devel containing Python header files. There is no need to install those packages |
| 89 | +manually because the full container image already contains them. However, the application needs httpd as a runtime dependency |
| 90 | +so we need to install it to the minimal container image as well. |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +``` |
| 93 | +# Part 1 - build |
| 94 | +
|
| 95 | +FROM python-314 as builder |
| 96 | +
|
| 97 | +# Add application sources to a directory that the assemble script expects them |
| 98 | +# and set permissions so that the container runs without root access |
| 99 | +USER 0 |
| 100 | +ADD app-src /tmp/src |
| 101 | +RUN /usr/bin/fix-permissions /tmp/src |
| 102 | +USER 1001 |
| 103 | +
|
| 104 | +# Install the application's dependencies from PyPI |
| 105 | +RUN /usr/libexec/s2i/assemble |
| 106 | +
|
| 107 | +# Part 2 - deploy |
| 108 | +
|
| 109 | +FROM python-314-minimal |
| 110 | +
|
| 111 | +# Copy app sources together with the whole virtual environment from the builder image |
| 112 | +COPY --from=builder $APP_ROOT $APP_ROOT |
| 113 | +
|
| 114 | +# Install httpd package - runtime dependency of our application |
| 115 | +USER 0 |
| 116 | +RUN microdnf install -y httpd |
| 117 | +USER 1001 |
| 118 | +
|
| 119 | +# Set the default command for the resulting image |
| 120 | +CMD /usr/libexec/s2i/run |
| 121 | +``` |
| 122 | + |
| 123 | +This way, the resulting container image does contain only necessary dependencies and it's much lighter. |
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