Docker: adding a file from a parent directory

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In my Dockerfile I‘ve got :

ADD ../../myapp.war /opt/tomcat7/webapps/

That file exists as ls ../../myapp.war returns me the correct file but when I execute sudo docker build -t myapp . I‘ve got :

Step 1 : ADD ../../myapp.war /opt/tomcat7/webapps/
2014/07/02 19:18:09 ../../myapp.war: no such file or directory

Does somebody know why and how to do it correctly?

docker

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Unfortunately, (for practical and security reasons I guess), if you want to add/copy local content, it must be located under the same root path than the Dockerfile.

From the documentation:

The <src> path must be inside the context of the build; you cannot ADD ../something/something, because the first step of a docker build is to send the context directory (and subdirectories) to the docker daemon.

EDIT: There‘s now an option (-f) to set the path of your Dockerfile ; it can be used to achieve what you want, see @Boedy ‘s response nelow.

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You can build the Dockerfile from the parent directory:

docker build -t <some tag> -f <dir/dir/Dockerfile> .

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The solution for those who use composer is to use a volume pointing to the parent folder:

#docker-composer.yml

foo:
  build: foo
  volumes:
    - ./:/src/:ro

But I‘m pretty sure the can be done playing with volumes in Dockerfile.