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Dockerfile Changelog

The Dockerfile does not strictly follow the SemVer approach of Apache Airflow when it comes to features and backwards compatibility. While Airflow code strictly follows it, the Dockerfile is really a way to give users a conveniently packaged Airflow using standard container approach, so occasionally there are some changes in the building process or in the entrypoint of the image that require slight adaptation of how it is used or built.

The Changelog below describes the changes introduced in each version of the docker images released by the Airflow team.

note:

The Changelog below concerns only the convenience production images released at Airflow DockerHub . The images that are released there are usually built using the Dockerfile released together with Airflow. However, you are free to take latest released Dockerfile from Airflow and use it to build an image for any Airflow version from the Airflow 2 line. There is no guarantee that it will work, but if it does, then you can use latest features from that image to build images for previous Airflow versions.

Airflow 3.1.0

In Airflow 3.1.0 we changed the base images used for building the Airflow images. Previously the images were based on “official” Python images from DockerHub, however those images sometimes lag behind the latest security patches and their maintainers made decisions about using older setuptools and pip versions, however we want to be able to use the latest versions of those tools to build the images. Therefore we decided to use bookworm-slim images from Debian as the base images for Airflow images and we compile and install the latest Python version in the image based on the official packages from the Python Software Foundation. This change should be transparent for those who extend the images or use them “as is”, however for those who want to build custom images, there are changes to the build-args passed to the docker build command:

  • The PYTHON_BASE_IMAGE arg is no longer supported - the base image is always debian:bookworm-slim

  • Instead AIRFLOW_PYTHON_VERSION arg is introduced to select the Python version to be installed in the image. It should be full Python version - for example 3.12.7 or two-digit version like 3.12 (the latest released Python patch version will be installed in that case).

  • Python is now installed in /usr/python/ directory not in /usr/local/ as it was previously. This should not affect regular uses because there are symlinks from /usr/local/bin/ to /usr/python/bin/, and /usr/python/bin is first on the PATH, however if the /usr/local/ location has been hard-coded to - for example - detect site-packages dir, the folders moved to the /usr/python directory.

There might be other subtle changes in the image due to the change of the base image, some packages ( especially dev libraries installed with apt might not be installed by default if they were installed as a side-effect in the original image, however that should only affect those who want to customise the image. They should be able to install in their custom images following the Building the image

The Python 3.13 image for Airflow 3.1.0 (both slim and regular) does not contain fab provider because at the time of release the fab provider did not support Python 3.13. It should be possible to install future versions of fab provider (when they support Python 3.13) in the image using pip install, and until it is possible - if you need fab provider (and particularly FABAuthManager) in the image, you should use Python 3.12 image. You can use experimental KeycloakAuthManager in Python 3.13 image or develop your own AuthManager.

Airflow 3.0.2

  • The git binary was added to the image by default which is needed for the git provider to work.

Airflow 3.0.1

  • The ARM image is not experimental any more - we are running the ARM tests regularly in our CI. The MySQL support for ARM images however is still experimental.

Airflow 3.0

  • The virtualenv package is no longer installed in the reference container. Airflow 3 and standard provider relies on venv module from Python standard library.

  • There is no pipx and mssql-cli installed in the image by default. We recommend to use uv tool instead of pipx and mssql-cli is not used in the image by default as we do not have mssql metadata support any more.

  • The INSTALL_PACKAGES_FROM_CONTEXT arg changed to INSTALL_DISTRIBUTIONS_FROM_CONTEXT

  • The parameter UPGRADE_INVALIDATION_STRING is renamed to UPGRADE_RANDOM_INDICATOR_STRING

Airflow 2.10

  • The image does not support Debian-Bullseye(11) anymore. The image is based on Debian-Bookworm (12).

Airflow 2.9

  • The “latest” image (i.e. default Airflow image when apache/airflow is used or apache/airflow:slim-latest) uses now the newest supported Python version. Previously it was using the “default” Python version which was Python 3.8 as of Airflow 2.8. With Airflow reference images released for Airflow 2.9.0, the images are going to use Python 3.12 as this is the latest supported version for Airflow 2.9 line. Users can use Python 3.8 by using apache/airflow:2.9.0-python3.8 and apache/airflow:slim-2.9.0-python-3.8 images respectively so while the change is potentially breaking, it is very easy to switch to the previous behaviour.

  • The PIP_USER flag is removed and replaced by VIRTUAL_ENV pointing to ~/.local where Airflow is installed. This has the effect that the Airflow installation is treated as a regular virtual environment, but unlike a regular virtualenv, the ~/.local directory is seen as system level and when the worker creates dynamically the virtualenv with --system-site-packages flag, the Airflow installation and all packages there are also present in the new virtualenv. When you do not use the flag, they are not copied there which is a backwards-compatible behaviour with having PIP_USER set.

  • The image contains latest uv binary (latest at the moment of release) - which is a new faster replacement for pip. While the image is still using pip by default, you can use uv to install packages and - experimentally - you can also build custom images with --arg AIRFLOW_USE_UV=true which will us uv to perform the installation. This is an experimental support, as uv is very fast but also a very new feature in the Python ecosystem.

  • Constraints used to install the image are available in “${HOME}/constraints.txt” now - you can use them to install additional packages in the image without having to find out which constraints you should use.

  • The image adds libev library to the image as it is required by cassandra driver for Python 3.12, also libev will be used in other Python versions as a more robust and faster way for cassandra driver to handle events.

Airflow 2.8

  • 2.8.3

    • The gosu binary was removed from the image. This is a potentially breaking change for users who relied on gosu to change the user in the container. The gosu binary was removed because it was a source of security vulnerabilities as it was linked against older Go standard libraries.

    • The smtp provider is now included in the list of providers installed by default in the image.

  • 2.8.1

    • Fixed a discrepancy in MySQL client libraries. In 2.8.0 if not specify INSTALL_MYSQL_CLIENT_TYPE build arg during build custom X86 image by default packages would be compiled by using MariaDB libraries, however MySQL libraries were installed in the final image.

  • 2.8.0

    • Add libxmlsec1 and libxmlsec1-dev libraries to dev PROD image and libxmlsec1 library to runtime PROD image as it is required by python3-saml library.

    • The image is based on Debian Bookworm in 2.8.0 rather than Debian Bullseye. This might cause some problems when building custom images. You are advised to make sure your system level dependencies are working with Debian Bookworm. While all reference images of Airflow 2.8.0 are built on Debian Bookworm, it is still possible to build deprecated custom Debian Bullseye based image in 2.8.0 following the

    • By default the images now have “MariaDB” client installed. Previous images had “MySQL” client installed. The MariaDB client is a drop-in replacement for “MySQL” one and is compatible with MySQL. This might be a breaking change for users who used MySQL client in their images, however those should be very specific cases and vast majority of users should not see any difference. Users can still use MySQL client by setting INSTALL_MYSQL_CLIENT_TYPE=mysql build arg and build the custom X86 image. The ARM image always uses MariaDB client, this argument is ignored. The “mysql” apt repository is removed from the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and if you want to install anything from this repository when extending the images, you need to manually add the right key and repository in your Dockerfile, following the instructions in A Quick Guide to Using the MySQL APT repository.

Airflow 2.7

  • 2.7.3

    • Add experimental feature for select type of MySQL Client libraries during the build custom image via INSTALL_MYSQL_CLIENT_TYPE build arg. mysql for install MySQL client libraries from Oracle APT repository, mariadb for install MariaDB client libraries from MariaDB repository. The selection of MySQL Client libraries only available on AMD64 (x86_64) for ARM docker image it will always install MariaDB client.

    • Docker CLI version in the image is bumped to 24.0.6 version.

    • PIP caching for local builds has been enabled to speed up local custom image building

  • 2.7.0

    • As of now, Python 3.7 is no longer supported by the Python community. Therefore, to use Airflow 2.7.0, you must ensure your Python version is either 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, or 3.11.

Airflow 2.6

  • 2.6.3

    • Add libgeos-dev library to runtime PROD image as it is required by BigQuery library on ARM image

  • 2.6.0

    • Snowflake provider installed by default

    • The ARM experimental image adds support for MySQL via MariaDB client libraries.

Airflow 2.5

  • 2.5.1

    • The ARM experimental image adds support for MSSQL

  • 2.5.0

    • The docker CLI binary is now added to the images by default (available on PATH). Version 20.10.9 is used.

Airflow 2.4

  • 2.4.0

    • You can specify additional pip install flags when you build the image via ADDITIONAL_PIP_INSTALL_FLAGS build arg.

    • Support for Debian Buster was dropped, including the possibility of building customized images as Debian Buster reached end of life.

Airflow 2.3

  • 2.3.0

    • Airflow 2.3 Dockerfile is now better optimized for caching and “standalone” which means that you can copy just the Dockerfile to any folder and start building custom images. This, however, requires Buildkit to build the image because we started using features that are only available in Buildkit. This can be done by setting DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 as an environment variable or by installing the buildx plugin and running docker buildx build command.

    • MySQL is experimentally supported on ARM through MariaDB client library

    • Add Python 3.10 support

    • Switch to Debian Bullseye based images. Debian Buster is deprecated and only available for customized image building.

    • Add Multi-Platform support (AMD64/ARM64) in order to accommodate MacOS M1 users

    • Build parameters which control if packages and Airflow should be installed from context file were unified

    • The INSTALL_FROM_PYPI arg was removed - it is automatically detected now.

    • The INSTALL_FROM_DOCKER_CONTEXT_FILES arg changed to INSTALL_PACKAGES_FROM_CONTEXT

Airflow 2.2

  • 2.2.4 * Add support for both .piprc and pip.conf customizations * Add ArtifactHub labels for better discovery of the images * Update default Python image to be 3.7 * Build images with Buildkit (optional) * Fix building the image on Azure with text file busy error

  • 2.2.3 * No changes

  • 2.2.2 * No changes

  • 2.2.1 * Workaround the problem with libstdcpp TLS error

  • 2.2.0 * Remove AIRFLOW_GID (5000) from Airflow images (potentially breaking change for users using it) * Added warnings for Quick-start docker compose * Fix warm shutdown for celery worker (signal propagation) * Add Oauth libraries to PROD images * Add Python 3.9 support

Airflow 2.1

  • MySQL changed the keys to sign their packages on 17 Feb 2022. This caused all released images to fail when being extended. As result, on 18 Feb 2021 we re-released all the 2.2 and 2.1 images with latest versions of Dockerfile containing the new signing key.

    There were subtle changes in the behaviour of some 2.1 images due to that (more details below) Detailed issue here

note:

that the changes below were valid before image refreshing on 18 Feb 2022. Since all the images were refreshed on 18 Feb with the same Dockerfile as 2.1.4, the changes 2.1.1 -> 2.1.3 are effectively applied to all the images in 2.1.* line. The images refreshed have also those fixes added:

  • All 2.1.* image versions refreshed on 18 Feb 2022 have those fixes applied: * Fix building the image on Azure with text file busy error * Workaround the problem with libstdcpp TLS error * Remove AIRFLOW_GID (5000) from Airflow images (potentially breaking change for users using it) * Added warnings for Quick-start docker compose * Add Oauth libraries to PROD images

Original image Changelog (before the refresh on 18 Feb 2022):

  • 2.1.4

    • Workaround the problem with libstdcpp TLS error

    • fixed detection of port number in connection URL

    • Improve warnings for quick-start-docker compose

    • Fix warm shutdown for celery worker (signal propagation)

  • 2.1.3

    • fixed auto-creation of user to use non-deprecated create user rather than user_create

    • remove waiting for celery backend for worker and flower commands rather than scheduler and celery only

    • remove deprecated airflow upgradedb command from Airflow 1.10 in case upgrade is requested

    • Add Python 3.9 support

  • 2.1.2

    • No changes

  • 2.1.1

    • Fix failure of lack of default commands (failed when no commands were passed)

    • Added _PIP_ADDITIONAL_REQUIREMENTS development feature

  • 2.1.0

    • Unset default PIP_USER variable - which caused PythonVirtualEnv to fail

Airflow 2.0

  • MySQL changed the keys to sign their packages on 17 Feb 2022. This caused all released images to fail when being extended. As result, on 18 Feb 2021 we re-released all the 2.2 and 2.1 images with latest versions of Dockerfile containing the new signing key.

    There were no changes in the behaviour of 2.0.2 image due to that Detailed issue here . Only 2.0.2 image was regenerated, as 2.0.1 and 2.0.0 versions are hardly used and it is unlikely someone would like to extend those images. Extending 2.0.1 and 2.0.0 images will lead to failures of “missing key”.

  • 2.0.2

    • Set correct PYTHONPATH for root user. Allows to run the image as root

    • Warn if the deprecated 5000 group ID was used for airflow user when running the image (should be 0 for the OpenShift compatibility). Fails if the group 5000 was used with any other user (it would not work anyway but with cryptic errors)

    • Set umask as 002 by default, so that you can actually change the user id used to run the image (required for OpenShift compatibility)

    • Skip checking the DB and celery backend if CONNECTION_CHECK_MAX_COUNT is equal to 0

  • 2.0.1

    • Avoid reverse IP lookup when checking DB availability. This helped to solve long delays on misconfigured docker engines

    • Add auto-detection of redis and amqp broker ports

    • Fixed detection of all user/password combinations in URLs - helps in auto-detecting ports and testing connectivity

    • Add possibility to create Admin user automatically when entering the image

    • Automatically create system user when different user than airflow is used. Needed for OpenShift compatibility

    • Allows to exec to bash or python if specified as parameters

    • Remove airflow command if it is specified as first parameter of the run command

  • 2.0.0

    • Initial release of the image based on Debian Buster

Changes after publishing the images

Occasionally our images need to be regenerated using newer Dockerfiles or constraints. This happens when an issue is found or a breaking change is released by our dependencies that invalidates the already released image, and regenerating the image makes it usable again. While we cannot assure 100% backwards compatibility when it happens, we at least document it here so that users affected can find the reason for the changes.

Date

Affected images

Potentially breaking change

Reason

Link to Pull Request / Issue

19 July 2025

3.0.3

  • The standard provider upgraded from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1

Sensor skipping issue

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/53455

24 Jun 2025

3.0.2

  • The fab provider upgraded from 2.2.0 to 2.2.1

  • common.messaging provider upgraded from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3

  • git binary is added to the image

FAB provider user creation did not work

importing SQS message failed with circular import

git bundle need it

https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/51854

https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/51770

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/51580

02 Aug 2024

2.9.3

  • The apache-airflow-providers-fab upgraded from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2

FAB provider logout did not work for 2.9.3

https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/40922

12 Mar 2024

2.8.3

  • The image was refreshed with new dependencies (pandas < 2.2 and SMTP provider 1.6.1

Both dependencies caused breaking changes

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/37748 https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/37701

16 Dec 2023

All 2..*

  • The AIRFLOW_GID 500 was removed

  • MySQL apt repository key changed.

MySQL repository is removed after the key expiry fiasco

https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/36231

17 June 2022

2.2.5

2.3.0-2.3.2

  • The Authlib library downgraded from 1.0.1 to 0.15.5 version

Flask App Builder not compatible with Authlib >= 1.0.0

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/24516

18 Jan 2022

All 2.2.*, 2.1.*

  • The AIRFLOW_GID 500 was removed

  • MySQL apt repository key changed.

MySQL changed keys to sign their packages on 17 Jan 2022

https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/20912

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