Migrating Dockerfiles from Debian apt to Alpine apk

Purpose

This is a guide to migrate Debian's apt package management commands to Alpine's apk commands.

Software packages for Alpine Linux are digitally signed tar.gz archives that contain binaries, configuration files and dependency metadata. Packages, sometimes called "a-packs" use the extension .apk.

How to use this guide

Use this guide to translate Debian apt-get commands to Alpine apk commands used within a Dockerfile.

Because this guide focuses on Dockerfiles, it only covers a selected subset of all apk commands. Readers interested in learning more about apk should read Alpine's package management guide.

The following table contains the mapping from apt commands to apk commands.

Action	apt command	apk command

Action	apt command	apk command
Update package database	apt-get update	apk update
Install packages	^{apt-get install package1 package2}	^{apk add package1 package2}
Remove packages	^{apt-get remove package1 package2}	^{apk del package1 package2}
Download packages	^{apt-get install --download-only package1 package2}	^{apk fetch package1 package2}
Clean up downloaded packages	^{apt-get clean}	Alpine cleans up packages automatically.

Learning more about apk

The fastest to learn about apk is to use it within a Docker container.

$ docker pull alpine

$ docker run -ti alpine

You will get Alpine's shell prompt. To get detailed information on options and sub-commands, execute:

#apk --help --verbose