diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 4fdd9fd10d01c10c12b57ad97abedf0575386365..4ab0868aa5b88d0ca7883a6016ed43d06259ede4 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -8,3 +8,9 @@ __pycache__/
 *.py[cod]
 *$py.class
 .ipynb_checkpoints
+
+#build dirs
+build
+BUILD
+debug
+DEBUG
diff --git a/containers/release/Dockerfile.in b/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
index 8134a34de690fb49ac574436621a4cd8279b0875..4ffe88b4118ba93a8eeb3c12a31b7793e9f0440b 100644
--- a/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
+++ b/containers/release/Dockerfile.in
@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ COPY eic-shell /usr/local/bin/eic-shell
 COPY eic-env.sh /etc/eic-env.sh
 COPY eic-env.sh /etc/profile.d/z10_eic-env.sh
 
+## also make sure we have the older container_dev command available
+COPY eic-shell /usr/local/bin/container_dev
+
 ## Setup fresh bashrc, useful for singularity
 COPY bashrc /etc/bash.bashrc
 COPY bashrc /root/.bashrc
diff --git a/deploy.py b/deploy.py
index 2c838b60898ff7bff027412b13b811227ec86ff0..dbc6480211d9b3ef449c4d382672181cd4d9bde7 100755
--- a/deploy.py
+++ b/deploy.py
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ PROJECT_NAME='eic_container'
 IMAGE_ROOT='eic'
 
 PROGRAMS = ['eic-shell',
+            'container_dev',
             'root', 
             'ipython']