COPYing a file in a Dockerfile, no such file or directory?

It is possibly caused by you are referring file1/file2/file3 as an absolute path which is not in build context, Docker only searches the path in the build context.

E.g. if you use COPY /home/yourname/file1, Docker build interprets it as ${docker build working directory}/home/yourname/file1, if no file with the same name here, no file or directory error is thrown.

Refer to One of the docker issue

Do check the .dockerignore file too.

I know this is a very rare case, but I had that file mentioned there.

The COPY instruction in the Dockerfile copies the files in src to the dest folder. Looks like you are either missing the file1, file2 and file3 or trying to build the Dockerfile from the wrong folder.

Refer Dockerfile Doc

Also the command for building the Dockerfile should be something like.

cd into/the/folder/
docker build -t sometagname .