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failed to read dockerfile: open /var/lib/docker/tmp/…/Dockerfile: no such file or directory

Docker started the build but can't find a Dockerfile in the build context or at the path you specified. Either the file doesn't exist, it's named differently (wrong case on case-sensitive filesystems), or you need to tell Docker where to find it.

Common causes

  • The file is named dockerfile (lowercase) instead of Dockerfile on a case-sensitive Linux filesystem
  • You're running docker build from the wrong directory — the Dockerfile is in a subdirectory
  • The Dockerfile was accidentally excluded by .dockerignore
  • The file simply doesn't exist yet

How to fix it

  1. Confirm the Dockerfile exists in the current directory: ls -la | grep -i dockerfile
  2. Specify the Dockerfile path explicitly: docker build -f path/to/Dockerfile .
  3. Fix the filename casing on Linux: mv dockerfile Dockerfile
  4. Check that .dockerignore doesn't exclude the Dockerfile itself

Example

$ docker build . error: failed to read dockerfile: open /tmp/buildkit-mount123/Dockerfile: no such file or directory

Running docker build . from a directory that contains a file named 'dockerfile' (lowercase) on Linux

Related Docker Errors

Cannot connect to Docker daemonPermission denied connecting to Docker socketDocker daemon not running on this hostImage not found or pull access deniedImage manifest not found (tag doesn't exist)

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