Published on April 18, 2023
As part of Docker Desktop’s latest 4.18 release, a number of new features have been introduced, including vulnerability quickview, recommendations, and image diffing for Docker Scout, a stable Container File Explorer, an init command for adding Docker quickly to a project, and an experimental Compose File Watch to monitor changes within a project.
In version 4.17, Docker Scout was introduced and is currently available only with Docker Pro, Team, or Business subscriptions. By analyzing the image content and listing all identified CVEs, Docker Scout provides insights into container image security.
Docker Desktop 4.18 now provides suggestions for resolving any identified CVEs. Using the docker scout recommendations command, you can indicate the availability of a new base image and list its benefits. Additionally, Scout offers a new command that lists all issues found in an image, including its base image, grouped by severity.
Additionally, Docker Scout introduces a new experimental feature aimed at increasing the ease of comparing images and retrospectively documenting changes made to an image to address vulnerabilities. As part of the report, which can be generated using docker scout compare, is a summary of the CVEs found in the base images as well as a list of all packages that have been added, removed, or updated.
Docker Desktop 4.18 includes a new CLI command, docker init, which is intended to create all files required to add Docker to an existing project, including Dockerfiles, Compose files, and .dockerignore files. As of now, Docker init supports Go projects, but Docker is working to add support for Node.js, Python, Rust, and other languages as well.
Docker Desktop includes a new GUI tool called the Container File Explorer to simplify the task of checking or removing files within a container. In addition to checking the file system of a container, developers can drag and drop files and folders, edit, and remove files. The new tool will be particularly useful in cases where there is no shell available within a running container.
In closing, I would like to point out a new Compose configuration option that is designed to keep services constantly up-to-date as they are modified. As an experimental feature, Compose File Watch includes a new watch service, which can be run by docker compose alpha watch. Compose.yaml has a new x-develop section that specifies a list of actions that should be executed when a change is made to a given target.
Using the snippet above, Compose will automatically synchronize to any changes under ./web and rebuild the image when package.json changes.
Take a look at the official release note for a detailed description of all the changes in Docker Desktop 4.18.
