Running a bash script before startup in an NGINX docker container

Question

I\'m trying to run a javascript app on localhost:8000 using docker. Part of what I would like to do is swap out some config files based on the docker run command, I\'d like to p

Answer 1

For my future self and everybody else, this is how you can set up variable substitution at startup (for nginx, may also work for other images):

I've also wrote a more in depth blog post about it: https://danielhabenicht.github.io/docker/angular/2019/02/06/angular-nginx-runtime-variables.html

Dockerfile:

FROM nginx

ENV TEST="Hello variable"

WORKDIR /etc/nginx
COPY ./substituteEnv.sh ./substituteEnv.sh

# Execute the subsitution script and pass the path of the file to replace
ENTRYPOINT ["./substituteEnv.sh", "/usr/share/nginx/html/index.html"]
CMD ["nginx", "-g", "daemon off;"]

subsitute.sh: (same as @Daniel West's answer)

#!/bin/bash

if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
    echo 'ERROR: No target file given.'
    exit 1
fi

#Substitute all environment variables defined in the file given as argument
envsubst '\$TEST \$UPSTREAM_CONTAINER \$UPSTREAM_PORT' < $1 > $1

# Execute all other paramters
exec "${@:2}"

Now you can run docker run -e TEST="set at command line" -it

The catch was the WORKDIR, without it the nginx command wouldn't be executed. If you want to apply this to other containers be sure to set the WORKDIR accordingly.

If you want to do the substitution recursivly in multiple files this is the bash script you are looking for:

# Substitutes all given environment variables
variables=( TEST )
if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
    echo 'ERROR: No target file or directory given.'
    exit 1
  fi

for i in "${variables[@]}"
do
  if [[ -z ${!i} ]]; then
    echo 'ERROR: Variable "'$i'" not defined.'
    exit 1
  fi
  echo $i ${!i} $1
  # Variables to be replaced should have the format: ${TEST}
  grep -rl $i $1 | xargs sed -i "s/\${$i}/${!i}/Ig"
done

exec "${@:2}"