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Container Images

Quarkus provides extensions for building (and pushing) container images. Currently, it supports:

Container Image extensions

Jib

The extension quarkus-container-image-jib is powered by Jib for performing container image builds. The major benefit of using Jib with Quarkus is that all the dependencies (everything found under target/lib) are cached in a different layer than the actual application making rebuilds really fast and small (when it comes to pushing). Another important benefit of using this extension is that it provides the ability to create a container image without having to have any dedicated client side tooling (like Docker) or running daemon processes (like the Docker daemon) when all that is needed is the ability to push to a container image registry.

To use this feature, add the following extension to your project:

CLI
quarkus extension add 'container-image-jib'
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='container-image-jib'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='container-image-jib'
In situations where all that is needed to build a container image and no push to a registry is necessary (essentially by having set quarkus.container-image.build=true and left quarkus.container-image.push unset - it defaults to false), then this extension creates a container image and registers it with the Docker daemon. This means that although Docker isn’t used to build the image, it is nevertheless necessary. Also note that using this mode, the built container image will show up when executing docker images.

Including extra files

There are cases when additional files (other than ones produced by the Quarkus build) need to be added to a container image. To support these cases, Quarkus copies any file under src/main/jib into the built container image (which is essentially the same idea that the Jib Maven and Gradle plugins support). For example, the presence of src/main/jib/foo/bar would result in /foo/bar being added into the container filesystem.

JVM Debugging

There are cases where the built container image may need to have Java debugging conditionally enabled at runtime.

When the base image has not been changed (and therefore ubi8/openjdk-11-runtime or ubi8/openjdk-17-runtime is used), then the quarkus.jib.jvm-arguments configuration property can be used in order to make the JVM listen on the debug port at startup.

The exact configuration is:

quarkus.jib.jvm-arguments=-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket\\,server=y\\,suspend=n\\,address=*:5005

Other base images might provide launch scripts that enable debugging when an environment variable is set, in which case you would set than environment variable when launching the container.

Custom Entrypoint

The quarkus.jib.jvm-entrypoint configuration property can be used to completely override the container entry point and can thus be used to either hard code the JVM debug configuration or point to a script that handles the details.

For example, if the base images ubi8/openjdk-11-runtime or ubi8/openjdk-17-runtime are used to build the container, the entry point can be hard-coded on the application properties file.

Example application.properties
quarkus.jib.jvm-entrypoint=java,-Dcustom.param=custom_value,-jar,quarkus-run.jar

Or a custom start-up script can be created and referenced on the properties file. This approach works better if there’s a need to set application params using environment variables:

Example application.properties
quarkus.jib.jvm-entrypoint=/bin/sh,run-java.sh
Example src/main/jib/home/jboss/run-java.sh
java \
  -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=/deployments/truststore \
  -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword="$TRUST_STORE_PASSWORD" \
  -jar quarkus-run.jar
/home/jboss is the WORKDIR for all quarkus binaries in the base images ubi8/openjdk-11-runtime and ubi8/openjdk-17-runtime (Dockerfile for ubi8/openjdk-17-runtime)

Multi-module projects and layering

When building a multi-module project containing a Quarkus application as one module and various supporting project dependencies as other modules, Quarkus supports placing these supporting modules in a separate container image layer from the rest of the application dependencies, with the expectation that these supporting modules will change more frequently than the regular application dependencies - thus making a rebuild faster if the application dependencies have not changed.

To enable this feature, the property quarkus.bootstrap.workspace-discovery needs to be set to true either as a system property when invoking the build tool, either as a build tool property. Setting this property in application.properties will not work because this property needs to be known very early on in the build process.

AppCDS

Quarkus supports generating and including an Application Class Data Sharing archive when generating a container image using Jib. See the AppCDS documentation for more details.

Docker

The extension quarkus-container-image-docker is using the Docker binary and the generated Dockerfiles under src/main/docker in order to perform Docker builds.

To use this feature, add the following extension to your project.

CLI
quarkus extension add 'container-image-docker'
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='container-image-docker'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='container-image-docker'

The quarkus-container-image-docker extension is capable of creating multi-platform (or multi-arch) images using docker buildx build. See the quarkus.docker.buildx.* configuration items in the Docker Options section below.

docker buildx build ONLY supports loading the result of a build to docker images when building for a single platform. Therefore, if you specify more than one argument in the quarkus.docker.buildx.platform property, the resulting images will not be loaded into docker images. If quarkus.docker.buildx.platform is omitted or if only a single platform is specified, it will then be loaded into docker images.

S2I

The extension quarkus-container-image-s2i is using S2I binary builds in order to perform container builds inside the OpenShift cluster. The idea behind the binary build is that you just upload the artifact and its dependencies to the cluster and during the build they will be merged to a builder image (defaults to fabric8/s2i-java).

The benefit of this approach, is that it can be combined with OpenShift’s DeploymentConfig that makes it easy to roll out changes to the cluster.

To use this feature, add the following extension to your project.

CLI
quarkus extension add 'container-image-s2i'
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='container-image-s2i'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='container-image-s2i'

S2I builds require creating a BuildConfig and two ImageStream resources, one for the builder image and one for the output image. The creation of such objects is being taken care of by the Quarkus Kubernetes extension.

Buildpack

The extension quarkus-container-image-buildpack is using buildpacks in order to perform container image builds. Under the hood buildpacks will use a Docker daemon for the actual build. While buildpacks support alternatives to Docker, this extension will only work with Docker.

Additionally, the user will have to configure which build image to use (no default image is provided). For example:

quarkus.buildpack.jvm-builder-image=<jvm builder image>

or for native:

quarkus.buildpack.native-builder-image=<native builder image>

To use this feature, add the following extension to your project.

CLI
quarkus extension add 'container-image-buildpack'
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='container-image-buildpack'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='container-image-buildpack'
When using the buildpack container image extension it is strongly advised to avoid adding quarkus.container-image.build=true in your properties configuration as it might trigger nesting builds within builds. It’s preferable to pass it as an option to the build command instead.

Building

To build a container image for your project, quarkus.container-image.build=true needs to be set using any of the ways that Quarkus supports.

CLI
quarkus build -Dquarkus.container-image.build=true
Maven
./mvnw install -Dquarkus.container-image.build=true
Gradle
./gradlew build -Dquarkus.container-image.build=true
If you ever want to build a native container image and already have an existing native image you can set -Dquarkus.native.reuse-existing=true and the native image build will not be re-run.

Using @QuarkusIntegrationTest

To run tests on the resulting image, quarkus.container-image.build=true needs to be set using any of the ways that Quarkus supports.

Maven
./mvnw verify -Dquarkus.container-image.build=true
Gradle
./gradlew quarkusIntTest -Dquarkus.container-image.build=true

Pushing

To push a container image for your project, quarkus.container-image.push=true needs to be set using any of the ways that Quarkus supports.

CLI
quarkus build -Dquarkus.container-image.push=true
Maven
./mvnw install -Dquarkus.container-image.push=true
Gradle
./gradlew build -Dquarkus.container-image.push=true
If no registry is set (using quarkus.container-image.registry) then docker.io will be used as the default.

Selecting among multiple extensions

It does not make sense to use multiple extension as part of the same build. When multiple container image extensions are present, an error will be raised to inform the user. The user can either remove the unneeded extensions or select one using application.properties.

For example, if both container-image-docker and container-image-s2i are present and the user needs to use container-image-docker:

quarkus.container-image.builder=docker

Integrating with systemd-notify

If you are building a container image in order to deploy your Quarkus application as a Linux service with Podman and Systemd, you might want to consider including the Quarkus Systemd Notify Extension as part of your application, with:

CLI
quarkus extension add 'io.quarkiverse.systemd.notify:quarkus-systemd-notify'
Maven
./mvnw quarkus:add-extension -Dextensions='io.quarkiverse.systemd.notify:quarkus-systemd-notify'
Gradle
./gradlew addExtension --extensions='io.quarkiverse.systemd.notify:quarkus-systemd-notify'

Customizing

The following properties can be used to customize the container image build process.

Container Image Options

Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime

Configuration property

Type

Default

quarkus.container-image.group

The group the container image will be part of

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_GROUP

string

${user.name}

quarkus.container-image.name

The name of the container image. If not set defaults to the application name

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_NAME

string

${quarkus.application.name:unset}

quarkus.container-image.tag

The tag of the container image. If not set defaults to the application version

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_TAG

string

${quarkus.application.version:latest}

quarkus.container-image.additional-tags

Additional tags of the container image.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_ADDITIONAL_TAGS

list of string

quarkus.container-image.registry

The container registry to use

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_REGISTRY

string

quarkus.container-image.image

Represents the entire image string. If set, then group, name, registry, tags, additionalTags are ignored

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_IMAGE

string

quarkus.container-image.username

The username to use to authenticate with the registry where the built image will be pushed

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_USERNAME

string

quarkus.container-image.password

The password to use to authenticate with the registry where the built image will be pushed

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_PASSWORD

string

quarkus.container-image.insecure

Whether or not insecure registries are allowed

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_INSECURE

boolean

false

quarkus.container-image.build

Whether or not a image build will be performed.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_BUILD

boolean

quarkus.container-image.push

Whether or not an image push will be performed.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_PUSH

boolean

quarkus.container-image.builder

The name of the container image extension to use (e.g. docker, jib, s2i). The option will be used in case multiple extensions are present.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_BUILDER

string

quarkus.container-image.labels

Custom labels to add to the generated image.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_CONTAINER_IMAGE_LABELS

Map<String,String>

Using CI Environments

Various CI environments provide a ready to use container-image registry which can be combined with the container-image Quarkus extensions in order to effortlessly create and push a Quarkus application to said registry.

For example, GitLab provides such a registry and in the provided CI environment, makes available the CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE environment variable (see GitLab’s documentation) for more information), which can be used in Quarkus like so:

quarkus.container-image.image=${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}
See this for more information on how to combine properties with environment variables.

Jib Options

In addition to the generic container image options, the container-image-jib also provides the following options:

Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime

Configuration property

Type

Default

quarkus.jib.base-jvm-image

The base image to be used when a container image is being produced for the jar build. When the application is built against Java 17 or higher, registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/openjdk-17-runtime:1.15 is used as the default. Otherwise registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/openjdk-11-runtime:1.15 is used as the default.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_BASE_JVM_IMAGE

string

quarkus.jib.base-native-image

The base image to be used when a container image is being produced for the native binary build. The default is "quay.io/quarkus/quarkus-micro-image". You can also use "registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi-minimal" which is a bigger base image, but provide more built-in utilities such as the microdnf package manager.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_BASE_NATIVE_IMAGE

string

quay.io/quarkus/quarkus-micro-image:2.0

quarkus.jib.jvm-arguments

The JVM arguments to pass to the JVM when starting the application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_JVM_ARGUMENTS

list of string

-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.jboss.logmanager.LogManager

quarkus.jib.jvm-additional-arguments

Additional JVM arguments to pass to the JVM when starting the application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_JVM_ADDITIONAL_ARGUMENTS

list of string

quarkus.jib.native-arguments

Additional arguments to pass when starting the native application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_NATIVE_ARGUMENTS

list of string

quarkus.jib.jvm-entrypoint

If this is set, then it will be used as the entry point of the container image. There are a few things to be aware of when creating an entry point - Entrypoint "INHERIT" means to inherit entrypoint from base image, jvmArguments field is used for arguments - A valid entrypoint is jar package specific (see quarkus.package.type) - A valid entrypoint depends on the location of both the launching scripts and the application jar file. To that end it’s helpful to remember that when fast-jar packaging is used (the default), all necessary application jars are added to the /work directory and that the same directory is also used as the working directory. When legacy-jar or uber-jar are used, the application jars are unpacked under the /app directory and that directory is used as the working directory. - Even if the jvmArguments field is set, it is ignored completely unless entrypoint is "INHERIT" When this is not set, a proper default entrypoint will be constructed. As a final note, a very useful tool for inspecting container image layers that can greatly aid when debugging problems with endpoints is dive

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_JVM_ENTRYPOINT

list of string

quarkus.jib.native-entrypoint

If this is set, then it will be used as the entry point of the container image. There are a few things to be aware of when creating an entry point - Entrypoint "INHERIT" means to inherit entrypoint from base image, nativeArguments field is used for arguments - A valid entrypoint depends on the location of both the launching scripts and the native binary file. To that end it’s helpful to remember that the native application is added to the /work directory and that and the same directory is also used as the working directory - Even if the nativeArguments field is set, it is ignored completely unless entrypoint is "INHERIT" When this is not set, a proper default entrypoint will be constructed. As a final note, a very useful tool for inspecting container image layers that can greatly aid when debugging problems with endpoints is dive

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_NATIVE_ENTRYPOINT

list of string

quarkus.jib.base-registry-username

The username to use to authenticate with the registry used to pull the base JVM image

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_BASE_REGISTRY_USERNAME

string

quarkus.jib.base-registry-password

The password to use to authenticate with the registry used to pull the base JVM image

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_BASE_REGISTRY_PASSWORD

string

quarkus.jib.ports

The ports to expose

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_PORTS

list of int

${quarkus.http.port:8080}

quarkus.jib.user

The user to use in generated image

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_USER

string

quarkus.jib.working-directory

The working directory to use in the generated image. The default value is chosen to work in accordance with the default base image.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_WORKING_DIRECTORY

string

/home/jboss

quarkus.jib.always-cache-base-image

Controls the optimization which skips downloading base image layers that exist in a target registry. If the user does not set this property, then read as false. If true, base image layers are always pulled and cached. If false, base image layers will not be pulled/cached if they already exist on the target registry.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_ALWAYS_CACHE_BASE_IMAGE

boolean

false

quarkus.jib.platforms

List of target platforms. Each platform is defined using the pattern: <os>|<arch>[/variant]|<os>/<arch>[/variant] for example: linux/amd64,linux/arm64/v8 If not specified, OS default is linux and architecture default is amd64. If more than one platform is configured, it is important to note that the base image has to be a Docker manifest or an OCI image index containing a version of each chosen platform. The feature does not work with native images, as cross-compilation is not supported. This configuration is based on an incubating feature of Jib. See Jib FAQ for more information.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_PLATFORMS

list of string

quarkus.jib.image-digest-file

The path of a file in which the digest of the generated image will be written. If the path is relative, the base path is the output directory of the build tool.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_IMAGE_DIGEST_FILE

string

jib-image.digest

quarkus.jib.image-id-file

The path of a file in which the id of the generated image will be written. If the path is relative, the base path is the output directory of the build tool.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_IMAGE_ID_FILE

string

jib-image.id

quarkus.jib.offline-mode

Whether or not to operate offline.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_OFFLINE_MODE

boolean

false

quarkus.jib.docker-executable-name

Name of binary used to execute the docker commands. This is only used by Jib when the container image is being built locally.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_DOCKER_EXECUTABLE_NAME

string

quarkus.jib.use-current-timestamp

Whether to set the creation time to the actual build time. Otherwise, the creation time will be set to the Unix epoch (00:00:00, January 1st, 1970 in UTC). See Jib FAQ for more information

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_USE_CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

boolean

true

quarkus.jib.use-current-timestamp-file-modification

Whether to set the modification time (last modified time) of the files put by Jib in the image to the actual build time. Otherwise, the modification time will be set to the Unix epoch (00:00:00, January 1st, 1970 in UTC). If the modification time is constant (flag is set to false so Unix epoch is used) across two consecutive builds, the docker layer sha256 digest will be different only if the actual files added by Jib to the docker layer were changed. More exactly, having 2 consecutive builds will generate different docker layers only if the actual content of the files within the docker layer was changed. If the current timestamp is used the sha256 digest of the docker layer will always be different even if the content of the files didn’t change.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_USE_CURRENT_TIMESTAMP_FILE_MODIFICATION

boolean

true

quarkus.jib.environment-variables

Environment variables to add to the container image

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLES

Map<String,String>

quarkus.jib.docker-environment

Sets environment variables used by the Docker executable. This is only used by Jib when the container image is being built locally.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_JIB_DOCKER_ENVIRONMENT

Map<String,String>

Docker Options

In addition to the generic container image options, the container-image-docker also provides the following options:

Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime

Configuration property

Type

Default

quarkus.docker.dockerfile-jvm-path

Path to the JVM Dockerfile. If set to an absolute path then the absolute path will be used, otherwise the path will be considered relative to the project root. If not set src/main/docker/Dockerfile.jvm will be used.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_DOCKERFILE_JVM_PATH

string

src/main/docker/Dockerfile.jvm

quarkus.docker.dockerfile-native-path

Path to the native Dockerfile. If set to an absolute path then the absolute path will be used, otherwise the path will be considered relative to the project root. If not set src/main/docker/Dockerfile.native will be used.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_DOCKERFILE_NATIVE_PATH

string

src/main/docker/Dockerfile.native

quarkus.docker.cache-from

Images to consider as cache sources. Values are passed to docker build via the cache-from option

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_CACHE_FROM

list of string

quarkus.docker.network

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_NETWORK

string

quarkus.docker.executable-name

Name of binary used to execute the docker commands. This setting can override the global container runtime detection.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_EXECUTABLE_NAME

string

quarkus.docker.build-args

Build args passed to docker via --build-arg

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_BUILD_ARGS

Map<String,String>

Configuration for Docker Buildx options

Type

Default

quarkus.docker.buildx.platform

Which platform(s) to target during the build. See https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/buildx_build/#platform

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_BUILDX_PLATFORM

list of string

quarkus.docker.buildx.output

Sets the export action for the build result. See https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/buildx_build/#output. Note that any filesystem paths need to be absolute paths, not relative from where the command is executed from.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_BUILDX_OUTPUT

string

quarkus.docker.buildx.progress

Set type of progress output (auto, plain, tty). Use plain to show container output (default “auto”). See https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/buildx_build/#progress

Environment variable: QUARKUS_DOCKER_BUILDX_PROGRESS

string

S2I Options

In addition to the generic container image options, the container-image-s2i also provides the following options:

Configuration property fixed at build time - All other configuration properties are overridable at runtime

Configuration property

Type

Default

quarkus.s2i.base-jvm-image

The base image to be used when a container image is being produced for the jar build

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_BASE_JVM_IMAGE

string

quarkus.s2i.base-native-image

The base image to be used when a container image is being produced for the native binary build

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_BASE_NATIVE_IMAGE

string

quay.io/quarkus/ubi-quarkus-native-binary-s2i:2.0

quarkus.s2i.jvm-arguments

The JVM arguments to pass to the JVM when starting the application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_JVM_ARGUMENTS

list of string

-Djava.util.logging.manager=org.jboss.logmanager.LogManager

quarkus.s2i.jvm-additional-arguments

Additional JVM arguments to pass to the JVM when starting the application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_JVM_ADDITIONAL_ARGUMENTS

list of string

quarkus.s2i.native-arguments

Additional arguments to pass when starting the native application

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_NATIVE_ARGUMENTS

list of string

quarkus.s2i.jar-directory

The directory where the jar is added during the assemble phase. This is dependent on the S2I image and should be supplied if a non default image is used.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_JAR_DIRECTORY

string

/deployments/

quarkus.s2i.jar-file-name

The resulting filename of the jar in the S2I image. This option may be used if the selected S2I image uses a fixed name for the jar.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_JAR_FILE_NAME

string

quarkus.s2i.native-binary-directory

The directory where the native binary is added during the assemble phase. This is dependent on the S2I image and should be supplied if a non-default image is used.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_NATIVE_BINARY_DIRECTORY

string

/home/quarkus/

quarkus.s2i.native-binary-file-name

The resulting filename of the native binary in the S2I image. This option may be used if the selected S2I image uses a fixed name for the native binary.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_NATIVE_BINARY_FILE_NAME

string

quarkus.s2i.build-timeout

The build timeout.

Environment variable: QUARKUS_S2I_BUILD_TIMEOUT

Duration

PT5M
About the Duration format

The format for durations uses the standard java.time.Duration format. You can learn more about it in the Duration#parse() javadoc.

You can also provide duration values starting with a number. In this case, if the value consists only of a number, the converter treats the value as seconds. Otherwise, PT is implicitly prepended to the value to obtain a standard java.time.Duration format.

Quarkus is open. All dependencies of this project are available under the Apache Software License 2.0 or compatible license.

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