docker-slim: Utility to reduce the fat size docker images

The “docker-slim” is a magic diet pill for our containers. It uses the static and dynamic analysis to create skinny image variants of our fat images.

To use docker-slim, we have to download its binary from docker-slim. Binaries are available for Linux and Mac. Once we download the binary, then add it to PATH.

I have used the “helloworld-docker” image for this exercise.  Refer my GitHub project (java-rest-docker).

Assume that, I have already built the docker image. Let’s run the “docker images” command to check the size of it. The below is the response.

Command: docker images

REPOSITORY               TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED          SIZE
hello-rest               latest              81a33e78995c        3 minutes ago       651.4 MB
java                     8                   d23bdf5b1b1b        4 months ago        643.2 MB

Let’s run the docker-slim utility now. The utility will run and create a new slim image.

  sudo docker-slim build --http-probe hello-rest

Then run the “docker images” command and check the output. In the output, I see a new image named “hello-rest.slim” and its size is 193.6 MB which is better than the original image size. Make sure to run the newly created image and check if its working or not.

Command: docker images

REPOSITORY               TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED          SIZE
hello-rest.slim          latest              1507f864ebbc        9 seconds ago       193.6 MB
hello-rest-docker        latest              81a33e78995c        3 minutes ago       651.4 MB
java                     8                   d23bdf5b1b1b        4 months ago        643.2 MB

• Docker