XSym: not found while executing binary in Docker on Windows

Question

I am using Docker on windows.

Error:

Step 4/5 : RUN npm install -g
 ---> Running in ec6582e10f69
+ [email protected]
added 1 package in 0.437s
Removing intermediate container ec6582e10f69
 ---> f2b9a25a51a3
Step 5/5 : RUN npm run build-tsc
 ---> Running in 6321ac31e370

> [email protected] build-tsc /app
> tsc

/app/node_modules/.bin/tsc: line 1: XSym: not found
/app/node_modules/.bin/tsc: line 2: 0021: not found
/app/node_modules/.bin/tsc: line 3: 8cbd85238d8fbeb66a0afc1d79bcd880: not found
/app/node_modules/.bin/tsc: line 4: ../typescript/bin/tsc: not found
npm ERR! file sh
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno ENOENT
npm ERR! syscall spawn
npm ERR! [email protected] build-tsc: `tsc`
npm ERR! spawn ENOENT
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] build-tsc script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2019-02-17T09_27_42_522Z-debug.log
ERROR: Service 'auth' failed to build: The command '/bin/sh -c npm run build-tsc' returned a non-zero code: 1

Dockerfile:

FROM node:8.15.0-alpine

ADD . /app/
WORKDIR /app

RUN npm install -g
RUN npm run build-tsc

package.json:

"scripts": {
    ...
    "build-tsc": "tsc",
    ...
  },
"dependencies": {
    ...
    "typescript": "^3.3.3"
  }

If I try to run the same command inside a terminal in the docker container it works perfectly. Using docker-compose if I put it in the command field it also works fine.

Answer 1

I see this problem with react-scripts build when I have my Windows node_modules/ folder mounted inside the Linux container. Most likely, you ran npm install in Windows then copied node_modules/ into your image on build, or you have your local project folder mounted as a Docker volume. Either way, you are trying to run a Windows executable on Linux and it blows up.

Technically it happens because content of binary file /app/node_modules/.bin/tsc looks like

XSym
0021
8cbd85238d8fbeb66a0afc1d79bcd880
../typescript/bin/tsc 

You should be able to work around the build-time issue by adding node_modules/ to your .dockerignore file.

If, like me, you later mount the local project directory inside the container for development purposes, you will still have to throw away the node_modules/ folder manually and run npm install again from inside the container.