Running old ImageMagick versions in a Docker container

If your project depends on an old version of ImageMagick that you can no longer install in your system, you can choose the run an old ImageMagick in a Docker container.

Dockerized ImageMagick commands will only work with absolute path arguments. You need to boot a corresponding docker container once before using it.

Setting up Docker

If you haven't installed Docker yet, use our guide or the official instructions Show archive.org snapshot .

Docker should work without sudo. Make sure that you follow the instructions to add your user to the docker group.

Building the image

Copy the attached Dockerfile in a local directory.

Run docker build . --tag bionic-imagemagick6:1.0 in said repository.

Forwarding ImageMagick commands to Docker

Now we have to replace the existing commands (located in /usr/bin/) with those of our Docker container.

Note that we cannot use Bash aliases are as we want to overwrite them in non-interactive shells as well.

Unpack the attached binaries to your ~/bin. Make sure each file is executable (chmod +x filename). For example, the convert command now looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
docker exec imagemagick-docker "/usr/bin/convert" "$@"

Boot the container (see below), then open a new shell and ensure that convert -version outputs:

Version: ImageMagick 6.9.7-4 Q16
Features: Cipher DPC Modules OpenMP

If you still get the version from your system's ImageMagick, make sure that ~/bin is in your PATH. To do so, add the following to your ~/.profile:

if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Then open a new terminal. Once you boot the container, ImageMagick commands like convert should work as expected.

Booting the ImageMagick container

docker run --name imagemagick-docker -d --rm -u $(id -u ${USER}):$(id -g ${USER}) -v /home/${USER}:/home/${USER} -v /tmp:/tmp bionic-imagemagick6:1.0 /sbin/init

Furthermore, these commands might be helpful:

docker ps
docker stats
docker stop imagemagick-docker