Docker run: invalid reference format

Question

I am getting this error:

docker: invalid reference format.
See 'docker run --help'.

I have this:

docker run --rm   \
    "$ecr_endpoint/notifier-cli:latest"                \
    --build-exit-code "$exit_code"                     \
    --event 'build-end'

the exit status of the docker run command is 125, if that helps. I have no idea what's going on here...an identical command is running fine earlier in the script.

the Dockerfile is like so:

FROM node:12

USER root

WORKDIR /app

COPY . .

ENTRYPOINT ["node", "main.js"]

CMD []

It may be easier to show this command without the variables but instead with some dummy content that also produces the same error. — tadman, May 19 '19 at 01:02
yeah let me see if I get the same error without the env vars — , May 19 '19 at 01:02
Does [this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45682010/docker-invalid-reference-format) seem like a related problem? It seems to be an issue with any sort of variable interpolation, even `$ecr_..` — tadman, May 19 '19 at 01:04
I think ecr_endpoint is undefined lol, that's the problem, really shitty docker cli error message tho, tbh. feck that error message lol. — , May 19 '19 at 01:04
You know who should be careful is the people raising crappy error messages :) Not you, but Docker people obviously — , May 19 '19 at 01:09
It's [open source](https://github.com/docker/cli) so if this really burns your britches you can always fix it and open up a pull request. — tadman, May 19 '19 at 01:09
Possible duplicates: https://stackoverflow.com/a/51498679/596285 https://stackoverflow.com/a/51208726/596285 along with others. Did you [search for your error message](https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bdocker%5D+invalid+reference+format&mixed=0) before posting? Changing the message upstream would require changing all of these questions. — BMitch, May 19 '19 at 15:12

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 19 '19 at 01:10

The problem was that the $ecr_endpoint variable was not defined. This took me more 15 minutes to figure out...awful error message hopefully it could be improved.

Before:

ecr_endpoint='' # empty

docker run --rm   \
    "$ecr_endpoint/notifier-cli:latest"                \
    --build-exit-code "$exit_code"                     \
    --event 'build-end'

I get the error :(

But now we define it:

ecr_endpoint='913xxxxx371.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com'

and it works

Docker run: invalid reference format

1 Answers1