how to compile nodejs to a single, fully static binary file

Question

Does anyone know how to statically compile nodejs to a single executable binary? I means no share libraries needed.

There are some guides for old version nodejs, but not work for last one.

Thanks!

Answer 1

As pointed by Daniel Milde, https://hub.docker.com/r/dundee/nodejs-static/ is a alternative, but its deprecated, and has no Dockerfile exposed, that do not inspire trust.

I've tested the node binary in a container from scratch and it worked.

You can build the node statically linked yourself.

~/src$ git clone https://github.com/nodejs/node
cd node
~/src/node$ ./configure --help | grep static
    --fully-static        Generate an executable without external dynamic
    --partly-static       Generate an executable with libgcc and libstdc++
    --enable-static       build as static library
                        link to a shared http_parser DLL instead of static
    --shared-libuv      link to a shared libuv DLL instead of static linking
    --shared-nghttp2    link to a shared nghttp2 DLL instead of static linking
    --shared-openssl    link to a shared OpenSSl DLL instead of static linking
    --shared-zlib       link to a shared zlib DLL instead of static linking
    --shared-cares      link to a shared cares DLL instead of static linking
~/src/node$ ./configure --fully-static --enable-static
~/src/node$ make
...
~/src/node$ file out/Release/node 
out/Release/node: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, for GNU/Linux 3.2.0, BuildID[sha1]=e5be29b02e283d0efdfc313e409b1a0802bd0603, with debug_info, not stripped
~/src/node$ /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --list out/Release/node 
        statically linked
~/src/node$ 

And let's test with a docker container from scratch:

~/src/node$ cat > /tmp/Dockerfile.node-static <<EOF
FROM scratch
COPY out/Release/node /node
CMD /node
EOF
~/src/node$ docker build -t glaudiston/node-scratch -f /tmp/Dockerfile.node-static .
Sending build context to Docker daemon  1.239GB
Step 1/3 : FROM scratch
 ---> 
Step 2/3 : COPY out/Release/node /node
 ---> ec9d62bb7eb0
Step 3/3 : CMD /node
 ---> Running in 2e375fc580f7
Removing intermediate container 2e375fc580f7
 ---> 5d6a2b5f20b8
Successfully built 5d6a2b5f20b8
Successfully tagged glaudiston/node-scratch:latest

$ docker run -ti node-static:latest /node
Welcome to Node.js v14.0.0-pre.
Type ".help" for more information.
> var x = { 'test': 123 };
undefined
> x.test
123
> 

You can build it in a Dockerfile too:

Dockerfile.node file:

FROM alpine:3.11.3
RUN apk add git python gcc g++ linux-headers make
RUN git clone https://github.com/nodejs/node && \
        cd node && \
        ./configure --fully-static --enable-static && \
        make
FROM scratch
COPY --from=0 out/Release/node /node
CMD /node

And to build:

$ docker build -f Dockerfile.node -t node-static .
Sending build context to Docker daemon  121.9kB
Step 1/6 : FROM alpine:3.11.3
 ---> e7d92cdc71fe
Step 2/6 : RUN apk add git python gcc g++ linux-headers make
 ---> Using cache
 ---> c343d63a3094
Step 3/6 : RUN git clone https://github.com/nodejs/node &&      cd node &&      ./configure --fully-static --enable-static &&   make
 ---> Using cache
 ---> e7f9fc931827
Step 4/6 : FROM scratch
 ---> 
Step 5/6 : COPY --from=0 /node/out/Release/node /node
 ---> 045ad784eadc
Step 6/6 : CMD /node
 ---> Running in f48178348e7b
Removing intermediate container f48178348e7b
 ---> ff1d93da95c8
Successfully built ff1d93da95c8
Successfully tagged node-static:latest

or, if you trust me, you can use my public docker image glaudiston/node-scratch.

~/src/node$ docker push glaudiston/node-scratch
The push refers to repository [docker.io/glaudiston/node-scratch]
9251f7e82698: Pushed 
latest: digest: sha256:c6f2154daa0144abafc0a7070c48f0c4031a036901c75d432b8c826ae793a1d7 size: 529