Dockerfile naming: .dockerfile vs Dockerfile

Question

I'm new to Dockerfile nomenclature and have noticed a few different examples of dockerfiles in repos throughout my org including the following types:

Is there somewhere I can find a detailed explanation for the different use cases and purposes of each?

I don't think its a hard and fast rule to name dockerfile in any way, the build command can be used to build docker image using any file name — Ayushya, Aug 18 '17 at 17:17
I'd stick with the default, `Dockerfile`, unless you have a reason to use any other name. — tkausl, Aug 18 '17 at 17:31
The Docker docs themselves also recommend putting each `Dockerfile` in its own directory so you can keep the default filename. Examples: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/build/ and https://github.com/docker/labs. In [moby](https://github.com/moby/moby), it looks like they use a different convention of `Dockerfile[.]`. I have also seen `example.dockerfile` in the wild, though this can be confusing because then all of the Dockerfiles in a given project aren't grouped together when listed. — Taylor D. Edmiston, Feb 10 '20 at 16:53
Does this answer your question? [How to name Dockerfiles](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26077543/how-to-name-dockerfiles) — Dherik, Dec 16 '22 at 13:37

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 27 '23 at 03:08

This is the docker build command, see the official docs for details.

docker build [OPTIONS] PATH | URL | -

The docker build command expects the file name to exactly be Dockerfile. So, in that case, you can simply do

docker build .

In other cases, you have to specify the full name as

docker build -f Dockerfile.build .

So the file name has nothing to do with the container itself. Those different names are for your own convenience.

1 Answers1