Add socat to the image

[docker-library]

Add socat to the image

[tianon]

Since this isn't necessary for most users of the image, and is trivial to add after the fact, I don't think we'll be adding it.

Here are some example Dockerfiles to install socat in the haproxy image:

FROM haproxy:1.8
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y socat && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

FROM haproxy:1.8-alpine
RUN apk add --no-cache socat

Combine that with automated builds (https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/builds/) and repository links (https://docs.docker.com/docker-hub/builds/#repository-links) and it's reasonably easy to have an up-to-date image built FROM this one with socat built-in. 👍

[rodlogic]

What you ask is reasonable, but it doesn't compare to just executing docker run -ti haproxy:1.8-alpine and getting all the functionality. Instead of focusing on 'most users', why don't you focus on 'all users'? After all it is a 300K (?) addition to the image. My 2 cents.

[tianon]

We can't possibly please "all users", which is why we target "most" instead (and honestly, we really target "upstream focused experience", so your argument will be a lot more compelling if you can find a link directly from upstream's documentation which explains why socat is necessary for proper or even suggested use of HAProxy).

While your ask is a modest 300k addition of just socat, the next fellow will see that we include socat, and want curl, and the next may be even more esoteric wanting mysql-client or something. What we end up with is a slippery slope that ends up including the full kitchen sink, and we get to maintain that long-term.

Another potential solution you might consider is putting /var/run in your image on a volume (-v /var/run) so that you can trivially do --volumes-from in a separate container which includes socat to interact with it (that's how my personal tianon/network-toolbox image is intended to be used, although it's normally via --network foo or --network container:bar). In fact, if my network-toolbox image doesn't already include socat, I'd be hip to doing so (since it's explicitly intended to be that "kitchen sink included" style image).