Express Docker Image

EXPRESS

Run your Express application rootless and distroless

SYNOPSIS 📖

What can I do with this? This image will run your Express application distroless and rootless with a default Express class provided at /Express.js.

UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION 💶

Why should I run this image and not the other image(s) that already exist? Good question! Because ...

• ... this image runs https://github.com/11notes/RTFM/blob/main/linux/container/image/rootless.md as 1000:1000
• ... this image has no shell since it is https://github.com/11notes/RTFM/blob/main/linux/container/image/distroless.md
• ... this image is auto updated to the latest version via CI/CD
• ... this image has a health check
• ... this image runs read-only
• ... this image is automatically scanned for CVEs before and after publishing
• ... this image is created via a secure and pinned CI/CD process
• ... this image is very small

If you value security, simplicity and optimizations to the extreme, then this image might be for you.

COMPARISON 🏁

Below you find a comparison between this image and the most used or original one.

VOLUMES 📁

• /express/var - Directory of the express application

EXAMPLE 🧬

main.js /express/var/main.js

js
const Express = require('/Express');
const app = new Express();
app.express.get('/', (req, res, next) => {
  res.status(200).json({hello:"world!"});
});
app.start();

COMPOSE ✂️

yaml
name: "express"
services:
  express:
    image: "11notes/express:5.1.0"
    environment:
      TZ: "Europe/Zurich"
    ports:
      - "3000:3000/tcp"
    restart: "always"

To find out how you can change the default UID/GID of this container image, consult the https://github.com/11notes/RTFM/blob/main/linux/container/image/11notes/how-to.changeUIDGID.md#change-uidgid-the-correct-way section of my https://github.com/11notes/RTFM

DEFAULT SETTINGS 🗃️

ENVIRONMENT 📝

MAIN TAGS 🏷️

These are the main tags for the image. There is also a tag for each commit and its shorthand sha256 value.

• https://hub.docker.com/r/11notes/express/tags?name=5.1.0

There is no latest tag, what am I supposed to do about updates?

It is of my opinion that the :latest tag is dangerous. Many times, I’ve introduced breaking changes to my images. This would have messed up everything for some people. If you don’t want to change the tag to the latest https://semver.org/, simply use the short versions of https://semver.org/. Instead of using :5.1.0 you can use :5 or :5.1. Since on each new version these tags are updated to the latest version of the software, using them is identical to using :latest but at least fixed to a major or minor version.

If you still insist on having the bleeding edge release of this app, simply use the :rolling tag, but be warned! You will get the latest version of the app instantly, regardless of breaking changes or security issues or what so ever. You do this at your own risk!

REGISTRIES ☁️

docker pull 11notes/express:5.1.0
docker pull ghcr.io/11notes/express:5.1.0
docker pull quay.io/11notes/express:5.1.0

SOURCE 💾

• https://github.com/11notes/docker-EXPRESS

PARENT IMAGE 🏛️

This image is not based on another image but uses https://hub.docker.com/_/scratch as the starting layer. The image consists of the following distroless layers that were added:

• https://github.com/11notes/docker-distroless/blob/master/arch.dockerfile - contains users, timezones and Root CA certificates, nothing else
• https://github.com/11notes/docker-distroless/blob/master/localhealth.dockerfile - app to execute HTTP requests only on 127.0.0.1
• https://github.com/11notes/docker-distroless/blob/master/node.dockerfile - runtime for javascript applications

BUILT WITH 🧰

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/express

GENERAL TIPS 📌

• Use a reverse proxy like Traefik, Nginx, HAproxy to terminate TLS and to protect your endpoints
• Use Let’s Encrypt DNS-01 challenge to obtain valid SSL certificates for your services

ElevenNotes™️

This image is provided to you at your own risk. Always make backups before updating an image to a different version. Check the https://github.com/11notes/docker-express/releases for breaking changes. If you have any problems with using this image simply raise an https://github.com/11notes/docker-express/issues, thanks. If you have a question or inputs please create a new https://github.com/11notes/docker-express/discussions instead of an issue. You can find all my other repositories on https://github.com/11notes?tab=repositories.

created 13.10.2025, 21:48:13 (CET)