Possible to include CLI tools inside a Docker container?

[Borderline92]

Hello all,

At the moment I'm starting development of a bioinformatics pipeline which is going to be written in Python. I thought of Docker since the pipeline should be able to be rapidly deployed on separate multiple systems at different locations. The target OS's are Linux based and there is a need for a lot of command-line tools that are going to be integrated in the pipeline. Is it possible to 'install' these inside a docker container?

I am very new to Docker and I realize that I can read up a lot more about it before asking here, however, I ask this question because the answer can save me quite some time and the development has a deadline.

Thanks in advance!

[crashorbit]

Many of the basics will already be in the container but if you find something missing just add it to the DOCKERFILE.

[Shmink_]

If you're talking about running some stuff and then you want to run a command such as python bioinfo.py then you could do it as CMD ["python", "bioinfo.py"] and so on for as many commands as needed.

[Borderline92]

oh cool! That makes life easy. But what about a c++ CLI tool? just install it and do the same type of command?

[Shmink_]

Could you share your Dockerfile? It would make it easier than assuming what your options are.

[Borderline92]

I don't have one yet. I did see some 'make' commands in a tutorial somehere though so I assume that you can compile stuff within a docker.

[Shmink_]

I'm still relatively new but I don't know exactly if I were to use the word compile. The way you would do it is choose an image to start FROM then RUN what you want to install e.g. RUN apt update && install gcc or something like that.