Skip to main content
Redhat Developers  Logo
  • Products

    Platforms

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
      Red Hat Enterprise Linux Icon
    • Red Hat AI
      Red Hat AI
    • Red Hat OpenShift
      Openshift icon
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
      Ansible icon
    • View All Red Hat Products

    Featured

    • Red Hat build of OpenJDK
    • Red Hat Developer Hub
    • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
    • Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces
    • Red Hat OpenShift Local
    • Red Hat Developer Sandbox

      Try Red Hat products and technologies without setup or configuration fees for 30 days with this shared Openshift and Kubernetes cluster.
    • Try at no cost
  • Technologies

    Featured

    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • Linux
      Linux Icon
    • Kubernetes
      Cloud icon
    • Automation
      Automation Icon showing arrows moving in a circle around a gear
    • View All Technologies
    • Programming Languages & Frameworks

      • Java
      • Python
      • JavaScript
    • System Design & Architecture

      • Red Hat architecture and design patterns
      • Microservices
      • Event-Driven Architecture
      • Databases
    • Developer Productivity

      • Developer productivity
      • Developer Tools
      • GitOps
    • Automated Data Processing

      • AI/ML
      • Data Science
      • Apache Kafka on Kubernetes
    • Platform Engineering

      • DevOps
      • DevSecOps
      • Ansible automation for applications and services
    • Secure Development & Architectures

      • Security
      • Secure coding
  • Learn

    Featured

    • Kubernetes & Cloud Native
      Openshift icon
    • Linux
      Rhel icon
    • Automation
      Ansible cloud icon
    • AI/ML
      AI/ML Icon
    • View All Learning Resources

    E-Books

    • GitOps Cookbook
    • Podman in Action
    • Kubernetes Operators
    • The Path to GitOps
    • View All E-books

    Cheat Sheets

    • Linux Commands
    • Bash Commands
    • Git
    • systemd Commands
    • View All Cheat Sheets

    Documentation

    • Product Documentation
    • API Catalog
    • Legacy Documentation
  • Developer Sandbox

    Developer Sandbox

    • Access Red Hat’s products and technologies without setup or configuration, and start developing quicker than ever before with our new, no-cost sandbox environments.
    • Explore Developer Sandbox

    Featured Developer Sandbox activities

    • Get started with your Developer Sandbox
    • OpenShift virtualization and application modernization using the Developer Sandbox
    • Explore all Developer Sandbox activities

    Ready to start developing apps?

    • Try at no cost
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Videos

How to add libraries to a Node.js container with S2I

June 29, 2022
Michael Dawson
Related topics:
Node.js
Related products:
Red Hat build of Node.js

Share:

    The Source-to-Image (S2I) toolkit allows you to easily build application container images for OpenShift deployment. Red Hat provides S2I images for a number of languages including Node.js. For example, this is the image for Node.js 16.x. To learn more about using the Red Hat images versus other Node.js images, check out the Building good containers section of the Node.js reference architecture.

    If you have an application with a package.json that includes an npm start command, deploying that application using nodeshift (which supports S2I) can be as easy as running nodeshift in the directory with the package.json. It will package your application and deploy to your current OpenShift project.

    Super easy, right? Well, most of the time. It might get a bit more complicated if your application uses native add-ons that need additional libraries not installed in the Node.js container image. For example, if you want to use the odbc package, you will need some ODBC libraries and the odbc client for the database you want to connect to. More specifically, if you want to use the odbc package with the MySQL database, install the additional libraries through the following RPMs:

    • unixODBC
    • mysql-connector-odbc

    So how do you pull all this off? The following steps worked for me:

    1. Building an image that extends the Node.js container image by adding the required RPMs.
    2. Deploying the application with Nodeshift and instructing it to use this image.

    We'll dive into these steps over the remainder of this article to show you how it's done.

    Build the extended image

    I used a BuildConfig to build the extended image:

    
    apiVersion: build.openshift.io/v1
    
    kind: BuildConfig
    metadata:
      name: odbc-base
    spec:
      source:
        dockerfile: |
          FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/nodejs-16
          USER 0
          RUN curl https://repo.mysql.com/mysql80-community-release-el8-1.noarch.rpm >mysql80-community-release-el8-1.noarch.rpm
          RUN dnf localinstall -y mysql80-community-release-el8-1.noarch.rpm
          RUN dnf install --nogpgcheck -y unixODBC mysql-connector-odbc
          RUN sed -i -e 's|Driver64=/usr/lib64/libmyodbc5.so|Driver64=/usr/lib64/libmyodbc8w.so|g' /etc/odbcinst.ini
          USER 1001
      strategy:
        type: Docker
      output:
        to:
          kind: ImageStreamTag
          name: odbc-base:latest
    

    I saved that in odbc-base.yaml and applied it with:

    oc apply -f odbc-base.yaml

    This creates a new OpenShift ImageStream named odbc-base, which extends the base Node.js image (in the FROM line) by installing the unixODBC and mysql-connector-odbc RPMs (RUN dnf install --nogpgcheck -y unixODBC mysql-connector-odbc). The rest of the lines in the Dockerfile are either set up to make the RPMs available or a workaround for what appears to be a bug in the mysql-connector-odbc installation.

    The USER 0 and USER 1001 lines are needed to set the user to root so that the dnf commands can run, and then to set the user back to what is expected by the S2I image when it runs.

    The curl and localinstall commands are needed to add the repository from which the mysql-connector-odbc RPM comes.

    The sed command works around a bug in the mysql-connector-odbc install where the odbcinst.ini configuration file points to the wrong library for MySQL in the default install.

    Once I applied the build config with oc apply -f odbc-base.yaml, I completed the following steps as an Administrator in the OpenShift GUI:

    1. Create an image stream named odbc-base. If you don’t do this, the build in step 2 will wait for the image stream before starting.
    2. Start a build for the build config making odbc-base:latest available.

    Deploy with the extended image

    Once you have the extended image in OpenShift as the odbc-base image stream, deploy it as follows:

    nodeshift --imageStream=odbc-base

    Summary

    If you ever wondered how to handle Node.js packages that require additional system libraries using S2I, I hope this article has helped. Only a few additional steps are required, and you are back to a single nodeshift install.

    If you want to learn more about what Red Hat is up to on the Node.js front, check out our Node.js landing page or the Node.js reference architecture series.

    Recent Posts

    • Why some agentic AI developers are moving code from Python to Rust

    • Confidential VMs: The core of confidential containers

    • Benchmarking with GuideLLM in air-gapped OpenShift clusters

    • Run Qwen3-Next on vLLM with Red Hat AI: A step-by-step guide

    • How to implement observability with Python and Llama Stack

    What’s up next?

    The Node.js cheat sheet will help you master the most useful command-line flags to customize Node.js’s behavior. You’ll save time and energy looking up how to do everyday development tasks like executing scripts, debugging, and monitoring your Node.js applications.

    Get the cheat sheet
    Red Hat Developers logo LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Facebook

    Products

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
    • Red Hat OpenShift
    • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

    Build

    • Developer Sandbox
    • Developer Tools
    • Interactive Tutorials
    • API Catalog

    Quicklinks

    • Learning Resources
    • E-books
    • Cheat Sheets
    • Blog
    • Events
    • Newsletter

    Communicate

    • About us
    • Contact sales
    • Find a partner
    • Report a website issue
    • Site Status Dashboard
    • Report a security problem

    RED HAT DEVELOPER

    Build here. Go anywhere.

    We serve the builders. The problem solvers who create careers with code.

    Join us if you’re a developer, software engineer, web designer, front-end designer, UX designer, computer scientist, architect, tester, product manager, project manager or team lead.

    Sign me up

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • About Red Hat
    • Jobs
    • Events
    • Locations
    • Contact Red Hat
    • Red Hat Blog
    • Inclusion at Red Hat
    • Cool Stuff Store
    • Red Hat Summit
    © 2025 Red Hat

    Red Hat legal and privacy links

    • Privacy statement
    • Terms of use
    • All policies and guidelines
    • Digital accessibility

    Report a website issue