can't install npm in the docker container?

Question

I am deploying a simple node.js app on a digital ocean server 's docker platform.

// package.json

{
  "name": "docker-centos-hello",
  "private": true,
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "Node.js Hello world app on CentOS using docker",
  "author": "Daniel Gasienica <[email protected]>",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "3.2.4"
  }
}

// app.js

var express = require('express');
var PORT = 3000;
var app = express();
app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.send('Hello world\n');
});  
app.listen(PORT);
console.log('Running on http://localhost:' + PORT);

// docker file

FROM dockerfile/nodejs
# Set the working directory
WORKDIR   /src
EXPOSE  3000
CMD ["/bin/bash"]

The docker base image is the dockerfile/nodejs, which has built a node.js, I built the image:

docker build -t test1 /home/sizhe/docker/test

and run the image:

docker run -it -p 8080:3000 -v /home/sizhe/docker/test1:/src test

By running the image, I can successfully into the container, the app files are all copied into the container. when I tried the command to install the node.js dependency:

npm install

However, npm can't download all the packages, with a error:

Linux 3.13.0-40-generic
npm ERR! argv "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node v0.10.35
npm ERR! npm  v2.1.16
npm ERR! code ENOTFOUND
npm ERR! errno ENOTFOUND
npm ERR! syscall getaddrinfo

npm ERR! network getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND
npm ERR! network This is most likely not a problem with npm itself
npm ERR! network and is related to network connectivity.
npm ERR! network In most cases you are behind a proxy or have bad network settings.
npm ERR! network 
npm ERR! network If you are behind a proxy, please make sure that the
npm ERR! network 'proxy' config is set properly.  See: 'npm help config'

Answer 1

Make sure the dns is set properly. I had some issues that were gone after the docker service restart. If it didn't help you may want to use the --dns 8.8.8.8 docker switch.

Restarting docker service:

• on systemd architecture - sudo systemctl restart docker
• boot2docker - boot2docker restart
• Docker Machine - docker-machine restart <machine_name>

Also, I did something similar (nodejs image), but I've used another base image, feel free to use whatever you need from my repo.