Misleading download option: official node docker image

[psrodka-neurosys]

• https://nodejs.org/en/download/:
• Chrome 54:
• Windows 10 Pro:

On the website https://nodejs.org/en/download/ one can find official node docker image which is misleading as it is Linux based image and since we got now Linux and Windows images one can be confused by the label.

Proposition

1. Create Windows based image, e.g.:

# escape = ` (backtick)
FROM microsoft/windowsservercore
SHELL ["powershell", "-command"]
# Required by chocolatey
ENV chocolateyUseWindowsCompression false
# Download and run chocolatey installer
RUN iwr https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex
# install 7 zip as required by nodejs installer
RUN cinst -y 7zip.install
# Install nodejs
RUN cinst -y nodejs.install

2. Update download site to reflect complex reality ;)

[fhemberger]

@nodejs/docker Do you want to add a Windows tag to the official Docker image? I'm not so sure if its feasible, the windowsservercore base image is already whopping 5 GB. Not the best foundation to run Node.js microservices. ;)

@psrodka-neurosys Regarding your example: Instead of using chocolatey, you should grab the Windows ZIP file directly from our dist, e.g.: https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-v7.4.0-win-x86.zip - Thus you always have the latest releases and don't need additional tools for installation. Powershell 5 has the function Expand-Archive $pathToZip $targetDir, that should work as well.

[psrodka-neurosys]

@fhemberger Thanks for comment. If you get from .../latest/version you will need to know the version number, so you will have to update Dockerfile along with new version of Node. In my example you are only using cinst -y nodejs.install, which I assume is latest on chocolatey. Maybe Node.js can introduce https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-latest-win-x86.zip - that would be most effective.

About 5GB - that is true, but if Windows guys are using Node as frontend layer for ASP.NET MVC application, then they will benefit anyway from Node on Docker as images don't sum up - they will share the same base image windowsservercore.

The real reason is still the confusing link name - there is no more Docker, period. Since introducing containers to Windows we will have to distinguish between the two not compatible worlds.

[fhemberger]

@psrodka-neurosys /latest/ was just an example. You always want a specific version which is tagged accordingly to ensure reproducible builds. Same goes for the base image.

And the link name is just fine. Host system and image base system don't matter in the container world. We went with the most widely adopted base systems (Debian and Alpine Linux) for our image. Both options work totally fine on Docker for Windows as well.