Unable to use sudo commands within Docker, "bash: sudo: command not found" is displayed

Question

I have installed TensorFlow using the following command

docker run -it b.gcr.io/tensorflow/tensorflow:latest-devel

and I need to set up TensorFlow Serving on a windows machine. I followed the instructions and while running the below-mentioned sudo command while installing TensorFlow Serving dependencies:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y \
     build-essential \
     curl \
     git \
     libfreetype6-dev \
     libpng12-dev \
     libzmq3-dev \
     pkg-config \
     python-dev \
     python-numpy \
     python-pip \
     software-properties-common \
     swig \
     zip \
     zlib1g-dev

The following error is displayed:

bash: sudo: command not found

Answer 1

docker comes along with root it doesnt require sudo.

BTW if you want sudo in docker if you want to install sudo,

try this,

apt-get update && \
      apt-get -y install sudo

now you can use sudo along with your command in docker...

Answer 2

Docker images typically do not have sudo, you are already running as root by default. Try

apt-get update && apt-get install -y build-essential curl git libfreetype6-dev libpng12-dev libzmq3-dev pkg-config python-dev python-numpy python-pip software-properties-common swig zip zlib1g-d

If you wish to not run as root, see the Docker documentation on the User command.

Answer 3

We don't want to weaken the security of the container by installing sudo in it. But we also don't want to change existing scripts that work on normal machines just so that they work in docker, which doesn't need the sudo.

Instead, we can define a dummy bash script to replace sudo, which just executes the arguments without elevating permissions, and is only defined inside the docker image.

Add this to your Dockerfile:

# Make sudo dummy replacement, so we don't weaken docker security
RUN echo "#!/bin/bash\n\$@" > /usr/bin/sudo
RUN chmod +x /usr/bin/sudo