GDAL Docker Images

This is an Ubuntu derived image containing the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) compiled with a broad range of drivers.

Update for Jul 2019

This repo is used for our internal uses. Since we made this repo, there is a better option for GDAL dockers from OSGEO

Please see the OSGEO GDAL Docker images — https://hub.docker.com/r/osgeo/gdal

You can pull all of the OSGEO Docker images for peeking and poking around to see if they see fit your needs.

docker pull osgeo/gdal:alpine-ultrasmall-latest
docker pull osgeo/gdal:alpine-small-latest
docker pull osgeo/gdal:alpine-normal-latest
docker pull osgeo/gdal:ubuntu-small-latest
docker pull osgeo/gdal:ubuntu-full-latest

For example, you can test which OSGEO Docker images support PDF or your other favorite drivers

# Step 1, set your GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE
# GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=roblabs/gdal
# GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=osgeo/gdal:alpine-ultrasmall-latest
# GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=osgeo/gdal:alpine-small-latest
GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=osgeo/gdal:alpine-normal-latest
# GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=osgeo/gdal:ubuntu-small-latest
# GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE=osgeo/gdal:ubuntu-full-latest

alias gdalinfoVersion='docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE gdalinfo --version'

# obtain a shell
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE /bin/sh

# check Python version
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE python --version

# run various GDAL commands
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE gdalinfo --version
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE gdalinfo --formats
docker run -it --rm -v "$(pwd)":/data $GDAL_DOCKER_IMAGE gdalinfo --formats | grep PDF

You can also see the size of the Docker images. The OSGEO is efficient in size, and my versions of Docker are fairly heavy in MB: Another reason to use the OSGEO version OSGEO Docker images.

# as of Oct 2021
osgeo/gdal   alpine-normal-latest      9 days ago       245MB
roblabs/gdal               latest      2 years ago      1.9GB

Docker hub

• https://hub.docker.com/r/roblabs/gdal/

Usage

The following command will open a bash shell in an Ubuntu based environment with GDAL available:

docker run -it --rm roblabs/gdal /bin/bash

You will most likely want to work with data on the host system from within the docker container, in which case run the container with the -v option. This mounts a host directory inside the container; the following invocation maps the host's local directory to /data in the container:

docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal /bin/bash

Note that the with the image tagged latest, GDAL represents the latest code at the time the image was built. If you want to include the most up-to-date commits then build the docker image yourself locally along these lines:

docker build -t roblabs/gdal git://github.com/roblabs/gdal-docker/

or, if you have already cloned this repo

docker build -t roblabs/gdal:latest .

Useful commands

# If you exit out of an AWS session, you can log back in to see if anything is still running
docker logs -f roblabs/gdal

Shell Aliases

You can use these bash shell aliases to simplify your use of gdal on the command prompt.

alias gdal='docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal /bin/sh'
alias gdal_translate='docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal gdal_translate'
alias gdalinfo='docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal gdalinfo'
alias gdalwarp='docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal gdalwarp'
alias ogr2ogr='docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/data roblabs/gdal ogr2ogr'