Docker build gives "unable to prepare context: context must be a directory: /Users/tempUser/git/docker/Dockerfile"

You need to point to the directory instead. You must not specify the dockerfile.

docker build -t ubuntu-test:latest . does work.

docker build -t ubuntu-test:latest ./Dockerfile does not work.

You can also run docker build with -f option

docker build -t ubuntu-test:latest -f Dockerfile.custom .

To specify a Dockerfile when build, you can use:

docker build -t ubuntu-test:latest - < /path/to/your/Dockerfile

But it'll fail if there's ADD or COPY command that depends on relative path. There're many ways to specify a context for docker build, you can refer to docs of docker build for more info.