Images containing C/C++ applications

Users are typically migrating from cc_image in rules_docker.

An example of packaging a simple C++ program

Using a minimal example C++ program example.cc:

#include <iostream>

int main(){
    std::cout<<"This is a C++ example!"<<std::endl;
}

To make a container image for this program, the BUILD.bazel would have something like this:

load("@rules_oci//oci:defs.bzl", "oci_image", "oci_load")
load("@rules_cc//cc:defs.bzl", "cc_binary")
load("@rules_pkg//pkg:tar.bzl", "pkg_tar")

package(default_visibility = ["//visibility:public"])

# Normal cc_binary
cc_binary(
    name  = "example_binary",
    srcs = [
        "example.cc",
    ]
)

# Packaging the binary into tar, which is needed by oci_image rule
pkg_tar(
    name = "tar",
    srcs = [":example_binary"],
)

# Making image
# C++ programs usually need some fundamental libraries such as glibc, libstdc++, etc.
# Correspondigly, use language-specific distroless images.
# Here we use docker.io/library/ubuntu image for this C++ program.
oci_image(
    name = "image",
    base = "@docker_lib_ubuntu",
    tars = [":tar"],
    entrypoint = ["/example_binary"],
)

# Use with 'bazel run' to load the oci image into a container runtime.
# The image is designated using `repo_tags` attribute.
oci_load(
    name = "image_load",
    image = ":image",
    repo_tags = ["example:latest"],
)

In MODULE.bazel file, be sure to add the following sections:

# Pull needed base image
oci.pull(
    name = "docker_lib_ubuntu",
    image = "docker.io/library/ubuntu",
    platforms = [
        "linux/arm64/v8",
        "linux/amd64",
    ],
    tag = "rolling",
)
# Expose the base image
use_repo(oci, "docker_lib_ubuntu")

# Import rules_pkg
bazel_dep(name = "rules_pkg", version = "0.10.1")

To load the image, execute:

bazel run //:image_load

Then to run the program with runtime, e.g., Docker:

docker run --rm example:latest