Docker/Angular/Nginx: "exec: \"npm\": executable file not found in $PATH":

Question

I have an angular app which I dockerized together with nginx. My dockerfile:

FROM node:8.11.3 as node

WORKDIR /app

COPY package.json /app/

RUN npm install
COPY ./ /app/

ARG env=prod

RUN npm run build -- --prod --environment $env

FROM nginx:1.13

COPY --from=node /app/dist/ /usr/share/nginx/html

RUN rm /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
COPY ./nginx-custom.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

EXPOSE 4200
CMD ["npm", "start"]

I build my docker image but when I start docker run I get following error message:

docker: Error response from daemon: OCI runtime create failed: container_linux.go:348: starting container process caused "exec: \"npm\": executable file not found in $PATH": unknown.

If I remove the last command from my Dockerfile (CMD ["npm","start"] I can run my docker image - it works. But I guess I need the last command so I can deploy and run my app in AWS. Also 'CMD npm start' doesnt work.

I have seen a couple of post about similar issues but non of the solutions worked for me.

UPDATE:

I removed the last line - CMD npm start. ECS is now trying to start my task - but it stops with exit code 1 and no further comments. Any idea?

Thanks, Michael

Answer 1

The nginx docker image doesn't contain npm. You'll need to use node:latest or node:alpine which contains npm.