diff --git a/tools/dockerfile/distribtest/python_dev_alpine3.7_x64/Dockerfile b/tools/dockerfile/distribtest/python_dev_alpine3.7_x64/Dockerfile
index 0fc3c312817..24e3a4b2eb7 100644
--- a/tools/dockerfile/distribtest/python_dev_alpine3.7_x64/Dockerfile
+++ b/tools/dockerfile/distribtest/python_dev_alpine3.7_x64/Dockerfile
@@ -19,3 +19,9 @@ RUN apk add --update build-base python python-dev py-pip
 RUN pip install --upgrade pip
 
 RUN pip install virtualenv
+
+# bash is required for our test script invocation
+# ideally, we want to fix the invocation mechanism
+# so we can remove this, but it has to be here for
+# now:
+RUN apk add --update bash