docker, alpine, and matplotlib

Question

I'm currently trying to shrink one of our docker images using alpine:

FROM python:2.7-alpine

However, I am having trouble pip installing matplotlib.h:

EOF
warning: no previously-included files matching '*.pyo' found anywhere in distribution
warning: no previously-included files matching '*.pyd' found anywhere in distribution
numpy/core/src/multiarray/numpyos.c:18:21: fatal error: xlocale.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
numpy/core/src/multiarray/numpyos.c:18:21: fatal error: xlocale.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/tmp/pip-build-kCID_8/matplotlib/setup.py", line 383, in <module>
    **extra_args
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/distutils/core.py", line 111, in setup
    _setup_distribution = dist = klass(attrs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py", line 269, in __init__
    self.fetch_build_eggs(attrs['setup_requires'])
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py", line 313, in fetch_build_eggs
    replace_conflicting=True,
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 826, in resolve
    dist = best[req.key] = env.best_match(req, ws, installer)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1071, in best_match
    return self.obtain(req, installer)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1083, in obtain
    return installer(requirement)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py", line 380, in fetch_build_egg
    return cmd.easy_install(req)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 640, in easy_install
    return self.install_item(spec, dist.location, tmpdir, deps)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 670, in install_item
    dists = self.install_eggs(spec, download, tmpdir)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 850, in install_eggs
    return self.build_and_install(setup_script, setup_base)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1078, in build_and_install
    self.run_setup(setup_script, setup_base, args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1066, in run_setup
    raise DistutilsError("Setup script exited with %s" % (v.args[0],))
distutils.errors.DistutilsError: Setup script exited with error: Command "gcc -fno-strict-aliasing -g -O2 -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -DHAVE_NPY_CONFIG_H=1 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE=1 -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE=1 -DHAVE_CBLAS -Ibuild/src.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/src/private -Inumpy/core/include -Ibuild/src.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/include/numpy -Inumpy/core/src/private -Inumpy/core/src -Inumpy/core -Inumpy/core/src/npymath -Inumpy/core/src/multiarray -Inumpy/core/src/umath -Inumpy/core/src/npysort -I/usr/local/include/python2.7 -Ibuild/src.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/src/private -Ibuild/src.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/src/private -Ibuild/src.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/src/private -c numpy/core/src/multiarray/numpyos.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.7/numpy/core/src/multiarray/numpyos.o" failed with exit status 1

I realize this is probably because of musl.

Here are the relevant bits of my Dockerfile:

# xmlsec is only available in the testing repo
RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .build-deps \
  xmlsec \
  xmlsec-dev \
  py-numpy \
  py-numpy-dev \
  --repository http://dl-3.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/ \
  --allow-untrusted

RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .build-deps \
  build-base \
  postgresql-dev \
  libffi-dev \
  nodejs \
  swig \
  git \
  libpng-dev \
  freetype-dev \
  libxml2-dev \
  libxslt-dev \
  python-dev \
  musl-dev \
  tk-dev \
  gfortran \
  py-setuptools \
  netcat-openbsd

RUN pip install -r requirements.txt

This is my requirements.txt:

setuptools==19.7
alabaster==0.7.4
amqp==1.4.6
anyjson==0.3.3
authy==2.1.2
awscli==1.9.12
Babel==1.3
backports.ssl-match-hostname==3.4.0.2
blessings==1.6
boto==2.9.9
certifi==2015.4.28
click==4.0
cryptography==1.0.1
Django==1.8.2
django-oauth-toolkit==0.8.1
django-appconf==1.0.1
django-compressor==1.5
django-cors-headers==1.1.0
django-coverage==1.2.4
django-crispy-forms==1.5.2
django-crontab==0.6.0
django-debug-panel==0.8.1
django-debug-toolbar==1.3.0
django-easy-pdf==0.1.0
django-email-extras==0.3.1
django-filter==0.10.0
django-forms-builder==0.11.1
django-libsass==0.3
django-markdown-deux==1.0.5
django-model-utils==2.2
django-nose==1.4
django-pgjson==0.3.1
django-phonenumber-field==0.7.2
django-pickling==0.1
django-ratelimit==0.6.0
django-redis==4.0.0
djangorestframework==3.3.1
djangorestframework-csv==1.3.4
django-rq==0.7.0
django-s3-cache==1.4.2
django-sphinx==2.2.4
django-storages==1.1.8
django-templatetag-handlebars==1.3.0
django-timedeltafield==0.7.10
django-twilio==0.8.0
docutils==0.12
ecdsa==0.11
extras==0.0.3
factory-boy==2.5.2
fake-factory==0.5.1
flex==4.3.0
functools32==3.2.3-1
gdata==2.0.18
gnureadline==6.3.3
greenlet==0.4.7
gunicorn==19.3.0
html5lib==0.999
httplib2==0.9.1
httpretty==0.8.10
inflection==0.3.1
ipdb==0.8
ipython==3.1.0
Jinja2==2.7.3
jsonschema==2.5.1
libsass==0.8.2
linecache2==1.0.0
lockfile==0.9.1
lxml==3.4.4
matplotlib==1.5.0
mimeparse==0.1.3
mistune==0.6
mock==1.3.0
newrelic==2.50.0.39
nose==1.3.6
nose-progressive==1.5.1
numpy==1.9.2
oauth2client==1.4.11
oauthlib==0.7.2
pandas==0.16.1
paramiko==1.15.2
pbr==1.0.1
pep8==1.6.2
phonenumbers==7.0.9
Pillow==2.8.1
pipdeptree==0.4.2
progressbar33==2.4
psycopg2==2.5.5
ptyprocess==0.5
pyasn1==0.1.7
pyasn1-modules==0.0.5
pycrypto==2.6.1
Pygments==2.0.2
PyJWT==1.3.0
pyOpenSSL==0.13
PyPDF2==1.24
python-daemon==1.6
python-dateutil==2.4.2
python-gnupg==0.3.7
python-logstash==0.4.6
python-memcached==1.54
python-mimeparse==0.1.4
python-openid==2.2.5
python-saml==2.1.3
python-social-auth==0.2.12
pytz==2015.4
PyYAML==3.11
pyzmq==14.6.0
raven==5.5.0
redis==2.10.3
reportlab==3.1.44
requests==2.7.0
requests-oauthlib==0.5.0
rq==0.5.2
rq-scheduler==0.5.1
rsa==3.1.4
simplejson==3.7.2
six==1.10.0
soaplib==2.0.0-beta2
sorl-thumbnail==12.2
Sphinx==1.3.1
sphinx-me==0.3
sqlparse==0.1.15
ssh==1.8.0
stripe==1.27.1
suds==0.4
terminado==0.5
testtools==1.8.0
traceback2==1.4.0
Unidecode==0.4.17
unittest2==1.0.1
uritemplate==0.6
vobject==0.6.6
Werkzeug==0.9.6
whitenoise==1.0.6
xhtml2pdf==0.0.6
django-absoluteuri==1.1.0

What do I need to do to get it to install?

Answer 1

I solved this issue by adding:

RUN ln -s /usr/include/locale.h /usr/include/xlocale.h

Everything could install properly. But I'm not sure it's good practice.

Answer 2

You probably need to use an alpine Linux docker image that uses glibc and replace musl-dev with glibc-headers, since the missing header files are bundled in glibc-headers.

All the top results in the Docker Hub when you look for glibc enabled alpine linux docker images use the same source for glibc APK packages.

That build does not include headers, but could be tweaked to do so by including another subpackage with the missing files, something along the lines of (untested):

headers() {
  mkdir -p "$subpkgdir"/usr/glibc-compat
  cp -a "$srcdir"/usr/glibc-compat/include "$subpkgdir"/usr/glibc-compat
}

in the APKBUILD file.

Having researched this, I question the usefulness of having the headers in your final container, though. It seems to me it would be much more useful to have an intermediate container to build the dependency that requires the headers, if at all possible, and install the resulting package in your container.

Answer 3

These dependencies worked for me: docker run -c 'apk update && apk add g++ make subversion gcc gfortran ca-certificates python3-dev libpng-dev freetype-dev python3; ln -s /usr/include/locale.h /usr/include/xlocale.h; python3 -m pip install matplotlib'

Replace python3 with python if you want 2.7

(in addition to the @Celine's answer)