Buildx

Buildx is a Docker CLI plugin for extended build capabilities with BuildKit.

[!TIP] Key features

• Familiar UI from docker build
• Full BuildKit capabilities with container driver
• Multiple builder instance support
• Multi-node builds for cross-platform images
• Compose build support
• High-level builds with Bake
• In-container driver support (both Docker and Kubernetes)

---

• Installing
  • Windows and macOS
  • Linux packages
  • Manual download
  • Dockerfile
• Building
• Getting started
  • Building with Buildx
  • Working with builder instances
  • Building multi-platform images
• Reference
• Contributing

Installing

Using Buildx with Docker requires Docker engine 19.03 or newer.

[!WARNING] Using an incompatible version of Docker may result in unexpected behavior, and will likely cause issues, especially when using Buildx builders with more recent versions of BuildKit.

Windows and macOS

Docker Buildx is included in Docker Desktop for Windows and macOS.

Linux packages

Docker Engine package repositories contain Docker Buildx packages when installed according to the Docker Engine install documentation. Install the docker-buildx-plugin package to install the Buildx plugin.

Manual download

[!IMPORTANT] This section is for unattended installation of the Buildx component. These instructions are mostly suitable for testing purposes. We do not recommend installing Buildx using manual download in production environments as they will not be updated automatically with security updates.

On Windows and macOS, we recommend that you install Docker Desktop instead. For Linux, we recommend that you follow the instructions specific for your distribution.

You can also download the latest binary from the GitHub releases page.

Rename the relevant binary and copy it to the destination matching your OS:

| OS | Binary name | Destination folder | |---------|---------------------|-------------------------------------| | Linux | docker-buildx | $HOME/.docker/cli-plugins | | macOS | docker-buildx | $HOME/.docker/cli-plugins | | Windows | docker-buildx.exe | %USERPROFILE%\.docker\cli-plugins |

Or copy it into one of these folders for installing it system-wide.

On Unix environments:

• /usr/local/lib/docker/cli-plugins OR /usr/local/libexec/docker/cli-plugins
• /usr/lib/docker/cli-plugins OR /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins

On Windows:

• C:\ProgramData\Docker\cli-plugins
• C:\Program Files\Docker\cli-plugins

[!NOTE] On Unix environments, it may also be necessary to make it executable with chmod +x:

$ chmod +x ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx

Dockerfile

Here is how to install and use Buildx inside a Dockerfile through the docker/buildx-bin image:

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
FROM docker
COPY --from=docker/buildx-bin /buildx /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
RUN docker buildx version

Building

# Buildx 0.6+
$ docker buildx bake "https://github.com/docker/buildx.git"
$ mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins
$ mv ./bin/build/buildx ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx

# Docker 19.03+
$ DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --platform=local -o . "https://github.com/docker/buildx.git"
$ mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins
$ mv buildx ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx

# Local
$ git clone https://github.com/docker/buildx.git && cd buildx
$ make install

Getting started

Building with Buildx

Buildx is a Docker CLI plugin that extends the docker build command with the full support of the features provided by Moby BuildKit builder toolkit. It provides the same user experience as docker build with many new features like creating scoped builder instances and building against multiple nodes concurrently.

After installation, Buildx can be accessed through the docker buildx command with Docker 19.03. docker buildx build is the command for starting a new build. With Docker versions older than 19.03 Buildx binary can be called directly to access the docker buildx subcommands.

$ docker buildx build .
[+] Building 8.4s (23/32)
 => ...

Buildx will always build using the BuildKit engine and does not require DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 environment variable for starting builds.

The docker buildx build command supports features available for docker build, including features such as outputs configuration, inline build caching, and specifying target platform. In addition, Buildx also supports new features that are not yet available for regular docker build like building manifest lists, distributed caching, and exporting build results to OCI image tarballs.

Buildx is flexible and can be run in different configurations that are exposed through various drivers. Each driver defines how and where a build should run, and have different feature sets.

We currently support the following drivers:

• The docker driver (manual)
• The docker-container driver (manual)
• The kubernetes driver (manual)
• The remote driver (manual)

For more information, see the builders and drivers guide.

[!NOTE] For more information, see Docker Build docs.

Working with builder instances

By default, Buildx will initially use the docker driver if it is supported, providing a very similar user experience to the native docker build. Note that you must use a local shared daemon to build your applications.

Buildx allows you to create new instances of isolated builders. This can be used for getting a scoped environment for your CI builds that does not change the state of the shared daemon or for isolating the builds for different projects. You can create a new instance for a set of remote nodes, forming a build farm, and quickly switch between them.

You can create new instances using the docker buildx create command. This creates a new builder instance with a single node based on your current configuration.

To use a remote node you can specify the DOCKER_HOST or the remote context name while creating the new builder. After creating a new instance, you can manage its lifecycle using the docker buildx inspect, docker buildx stop, and docker buildx rm commands. To list all available builders, use docker buildx ls. After creating a new builder you can also append new nodes to it.

To switch between different builders, use docker buildx use <name>. After running this command, the build commands will automatically use this builder.

Docker also features a docker context command that can be used for giving names for remote Docker API endpoints. Buildx integrates with docker context so that all of your contexts automatically get a default builder instance. While creating a new builder instance or when adding a node to it, you can also set the context name as the target.

[!NOTE] For more information, see Builders docs.

Building multi-platform images

BuildKit is designed to work well for building for multiple platforms and not only for the architecture and operating system that the user invoking the build happens to run.

When you invoke a build, you can set the --platform flag to specify the target platform for the build output, (for example, linux/amd64, linux/arm64, or darwin/amd64).

When the current builder instance is backed by the docker-container or kubernetes driver, you can specify multiple platforms together. In this case, it builds a manifest list which contains images for all specified architectures. When you use this image in docker run or docker service, Docker picks the correct image based on the node's platform.

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