How to use apt install correctly in your Dockerfile

This is the correct way to use apt install in your Dockerfile:

RUN apt update && apt install -y PACKAGE && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Key takeaways:

• Set DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive to prevent some packages from prompting interactive input (tzdata for example), which leads to indefinite waiting for an user input
• Run apt update before the install command to fetch the current package lists
• apt install with -y to prevent apt from asking you if you really want to install the packages
• rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* after the install command in order ot prevent the cached apt lists (which are fetched by apt update) from ending up in the container image
• All of that in one command joined by && in order to prevent docker from building separate layers for each part of the command (and to prevent it from first storing /var/lib/apt/lists in one layer and then delete it in another layer)

Also see the official guide on Dockerfile best practices