diff --git a/Dockerfiles/alpine.Dockerfile b/Dockerfiles/alpine.Dockerfile
index 0e633239..5a54e206 100644
--- a/Dockerfiles/alpine.Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfiles/alpine.Dockerfile
@@ -9,18 +9,17 @@ LABEL maintainer="team@gnes.ai" \
       org.label-schema.build-date=$BUILD_DATE \
       org.label-schema.name="GNES is Generic Nerual Elastic Search"
 
-RUN apk add --no-cache \
-            --virtual=.build-dependencies \
-            build-base g++ gfortran file binutils zeromq-dev \
-            musl-dev python3-dev py-pgen cython openblas-dev && \
-    apk add --no-cache libstdc++ openblas libzmq
-
 WORKDIR /gnes/
 
 ADD setup.py MANIFEST.in requirements.txt README.md ./
 ADD gnes ./gnes/
 
-RUN ln -s locale.h /usr/include/xlocale.h && \
+RUN apk add --no-cache \
+            --virtual=.build-dependencies \
+            build-base g++ gfortran file binutils zeromq-dev \
+            musl-dev python3-dev py-pgen cython openblas-dev && \
+    apk add --no-cache libstdc++ openblas libzmq && \
+    ln -s locale.h /usr/include/xlocale.h && \
     pip install . --no-cache-dir --compile && \
     find /usr/lib/python3.7/ -name 'tests' -exec rm -r '{}' + && \
     find /usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ -name '*.so' -print -exec sh -c 'file "{}" | grep -q "not stripped" && strip -s "{}"' \; && \
diff --git a/gnes/cli/parser.py b/gnes/cli/parser.py
index 8979297b..ac3b858a 100644
--- a/gnes/cli/parser.py
+++ b/gnes/cli/parser.py
@@ -308,7 +308,8 @@ def set_frontend_parser(parser=None):
                         read_only=True)
     parser.add_argument('--max_concurrency', type=int, default=10,
                         help='maximum concurrent connections allowed')
-
+    parser.add_argument('--dump_route', type=argparse.FileType('w', encoding='utf8'),
+                        help='dumping route information to a file')
     return parser
 
 
diff --git a/gnes/service/frontend.py b/gnes/service/frontend.py
index ebe687c7..1f2dd2f6 100644
--- a/gnes/service/frontend.py
+++ b/gnes/service/frontend.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
 
 import grpc
+from google.protobuf.json_format import MessageToJson
 
 from .. import __version__, __proto_version__
 from ..client.base import ZmqClient
@@ -80,7 +81,8 @@ def remove_envelope(self, m: 'gnes_pb2.Message'):
             if self.args.route_table:
                 self.logger.info('route: %s' % router2str(m))
                 self.logger.info('route table: \n%s' % make_route_table(m.envelope.routes, exclude_frontend=True))
-
+            if self.args.dump_route:
+                self.args.dump_route.write(MessageToJson(m.envelope, indent=0).replace('\n', '') + '\n')
             return resp
 
         def Call(self, request, context):
@@ -115,7 +117,8 @@ def StreamCall(self, request_iterator, context):
                             num_request -= 1
                         except TimeoutError:
                             if num_request > max_outstanding:
-                                self.logger.warning("the network traffic exceed max outstanding (%d > %d)" % (num_request, max_outstanding))
+                                self.logger.warning("the network traffic exceed max outstanding (%d > %d)" % (
+                                    num_request, max_outstanding))
                                 continue
                             break
                     zmq_client.send_message(self.add_envelope(request, zmq_client), -1)
diff --git a/tests/test_dict_indexer.py b/tests/test_dict_indexer.py
index c0f58905..ee158fe0 100644
--- a/tests/test_dict_indexer.py
+++ b/tests/test_dict_indexer.py
@@ -33,7 +33,9 @@ def setUp(self):
     def test_pymode(self):
         os.unsetenv('http_proxy')
         os.unsetenv('https_proxy')
-        args = set_frontend_parser().parse_args([])
+        args = set_frontend_parser().parse_args([
+            '--dump_route', 'test.json'
+        ])
 
         p_args = set_preprocessor_parser().parse_args([
             '--port_in', str(args.port_out),