DOCKER panic: fork/exec /usr/local/bin/pkl: no such file or directory

[khanakia]

I am using Docker and cannot execute pkl

DOCKERFILE

FROM golang:1.24.4-alpine3.22

RUN apk update && apk add --no-cache git ca-certificates curl

RUN curl -L -o pkl https://github.com/apple/pkl/releases/download/0.25.2/pkl-linux-aarch64 && chmod +x pkl && mv pkl /usr/local/bin/

But the pkl file does exists in docker

/usr/local/bin # ls
pkl

[HT154]

Are you sure /usr/local/bin is in the $PATH in the image you're working with? That would cause the error you're seeing.

It's also worth noting: because of limitations with the Graal native image toolchain, Pkl cannot offer statically linked (alpine/musl compatible) executables for arm64 Linux. If you do need to target arm64, you'll need to use a glibc-based image (eg. debian) instead.

[khanakia]

Found the issue, even the docker arch is aarch64 this, but when I used this amd64 binary https://github.com/apple/pkl/releases/download/0.25.2/pkl-alpine-linux-amd64 it worked fine

no idea why

[HT154]

If you're running on an Apple Silicon Mac, it's likely that your container runtime is providing automatic Rosetta 2 support to enable running amd64/x86_64 binaries like this.

[khanakia]

Yes, I am running on Apple Silicon Mac

But why did pkl-linux-aarch64 not work then as you can see when i check Arch inside docker container it says aarch64

[HT154]

That's what I'm referring to here:

Pkl cannot offer statically linked (alpine/musl compatible) executables for arm64 Linux. If you do need to target arm64, you'll need to use a glibc-based image (eg. debian) instead.

Pkl's aarch64 binary links glibc, but glibc is not present in the Alpine Linux distro so it cannot run. For amd64, Pkl provides an "alpine" executable that is statically linked (so does not link glibc) that works on Alpine Linux. Due to missing support in Pkl's build toolchain, the equivalent is not available for aarch64.

[khanakia]

Instead of choosing multiple binaries to install in Docker, can we have automatically detectable installation scripts?

Almost every tool provides an installation script like this

RUN sh -c "$(curl --location https://taskfile.dev/install.sh)" -- -d -b /usr/local/bin

[HT154]

Using a curlbash comes with security risks and I'm not sure (as a community member) that the Pkl project would take on promoting that. I think it's worth filing an issue to request that.

That said, if you're running in a non-Alpine image (so there are actually per-arch images available), installing Pkl is still a one-liner(-ish):

ARG TARGETARCH
RUN curl -Lfo /bin/pkl https://github.com/apple/pkl/releases/download/${PKL_VERSION}/pkl-linux-${TARGETARCH//arm64/aarch64} && chmod +x /bin/pkl

Docker/buildkit automatically sets TARGETARCH appropriately for you.

[khanakia]

Yes, but I am also using Alpine images because of their smaller size.

In a macOS Docker container, pkl breaks because i hardcode the pkl-alpine-linux-amd64

Anyway thanks 👍