How to create a docker container inside docker in the GitLab CI/CD pipeline? - docker

Since I do not have lots of experience with DevOps yet, I am struggling with finding an answer for the following question:
I'm setting up the CI/CD pipeline for my project (Python, FastAPI, Redis), which will have test and build stages. It can be described as follows:
Before stages: Install all dependencies (install python, copy files for testing, etc.)
The test stage uses docker-compose for running the Redis server, which is
necessary to launch the application for testing (unit test).
The build stage creates a new docker container
and pushes it to the Docker Hub if there is a new Gitlab tag.
The GitLab Runner is located on the AWS EC2 instance, the runner executor is a "docker" with an "Ubuntu:20.04" image. So, the question:
How to run "docker-compose"/"docker build" inside the docker executor and whether it can be done at all without any negative consequences?
I thought about several options:
Switch from docker executor to something else (maybe to shell or docker+ssh)
Use Docker-in-Docker, but I see cautions that it can be dangerous and not sure exactly why in my case.
What I've tried:
To use Redis as "services" in Gitlab job instead of docker-compose file, but I can't find a way to bind my application (host and port) to a server that runs inside the docker executor as a service.

Related

How does gitlab-ci works internally with gitlab runner?

I have some specific questions regarding gitlab-ci and runner:
If my specific runner is configured in kubernetes cluster then how code mirroring happens into runner from Gitlab code repository
How does the build happens in runner when it is configured within kubernetes cluster?
When using any docker image in my .gitlab-ci.yml, how does those images are pulled by runner and how does commands mentioned within "script" tag are executed into those docker containers? Does runner creates pods within the kubernetes cluster (where runner is configured) with the image mentioned within .gitlab-ci.yml, and executes commands within those containers?
Any additional explanations or references to learning material on how Gitlab runner works internally is highly appreciated.
I'm assuming when you say your GitLab Runner is configured in Kubernetes you mean you're using the Kubernetes executor. I marked the sections relevant to your questions.
(1) GitLab CI pulls the code from the repository (if public it's not an issue, but you can also use a private registry). Basically a helper image is used to clone the repository and download any artifacts into a container.
The Kubernetes executor lets you use an existing Kubernetes cluster to execute your pipeline/build step by calling the Kubernetes cluster API and creating a new Pod, with both build and services containers for each job. (3)
A more detailed view of the steps a Runner takes:
Prepare: Create the Pod against the Kubernetes Cluster. This creates the containers required for the build and services to run.
Pre-build: Clone, restore cache and download artifacts from previous stages. This is run on a special container as part of the Pod. (2)
Build: User build.
Post-build: Create cache, upload artifacts to GitLab. This also uses the special container as part of the Pod.
The GitLab repository for the runners might also be interesting for you.

Best practice using docker inside Jenkins?

Hi I'm learning how to use Jenkins integrated with Docker and I don't understand what should I do to communicate them.
I'm running Jenkins inside a Docker container and I want to build an image in a pipeline. So I need to execute some docker commands inside the Jenkins container.
So the thing here is where docker come from. I understand that we need to bind mount the docker host daemon (socket) to the Jenkins container but this container still needs the binaries to execute Docker.
I have seen some approaches to achieve this and I'm confused what should I do. I have seen:
bind mount the docker binary (/usr/local/bin/docker:/usr/bin/docker)
installing docker in the image
if I'm not wrong the blue ocean image comes with Docker pre-installed (I have not found any documentation of this)
Also I don't understand what Docker plugins for Jenkins can do for me.
Thanks!
Docker has a client server architecture. The server is the docker deamon and the client is basically the command line interface that allows you to execute docker ... from the command line.
Thus when running Jenkins inside Docker you will need access to connect to the deamon. This is acheieved by binding the /var/run/docker.sock into the container.
At this point you need something to communicate with the Deamon which is the server. You can either do that by providing access to docker binaries. This can be achived by either mounting the docker binaries, or installing the
client binaries inside the Jenkins container.
Alternatively, you can communicate with the deamon using the Docker Rest API without having the docker client binaries inside the Jenkins container. You can for instance build an image using the API.
Also I don't understand what Docker plugins for Jenkins can do for me
The Docker plugin for Jenkins isn't useful for the use case that you described. This plugin allows you to provision Jenkins slaves using Docker. You can for instance run a compilation inside a Docker container that gets automatically provisioned by Jenkins
It is not best practice to use Docker with Jenkins. It is also not a bad practice. The relationship between Jenkins and Docker is not determined in such a manner that having Docker is good or bad.
Jenkins is a Continuous Integration Server, which is a fancy way of saying "a service that builds stuff at various times, according to predefined rules"
If your end result is a docker image to be distributed, you have Jenkins call your docker build command, collect the output, and report on the success / failure of the docker build command.
If your end result is not a docker image, you have Jenkins call your non-docker build command, collect the output, and report on the success / failure of the non-docker build.
How you have the build launched depends on how you would build the product. Makefiles are launched with make, Apache Ant with ant, Apache Maven with mvn package, docker with docker build and so on. From Jenkin's perspective, it doesn't matter, provided you provide a complete set of rules to launch the build, collect the output, and report the success or failure.
Now, for the 'Docker plugin for Jenkins'. As #yamenk stated, Jenkins uses build slaves to perform the build. That plugin will launch the build slave within a Docker container. The thing built within that container may or may not be a docker image.
Finally, running Jenkins inside a docker container just means you need to bind your Docker-ized Jenkins to the external world, as #yamenk indicates, or you'll have trouble launching builds.
Bind mounting the docker binary into the jenkins image only works if the jenkins images is "close enough" - it has to contain the required shared libraries!
So when sing a standard jenkins/jenkins:2.150.1 within an ubuntu 18.04 this is not working unfortunately. (it looked so nice and slim ;)
So the the requirement is to build or find a docker image which contains a compatible docker client for the host docker service is.
Many people seem to install docker in their jenkins image....

Docker and Gitlab - how to modify the docker run

I'm very new to contentious integration with Docker and Gitlab.
I have a situation where my script in .gitlab-ci.yml needs to encode files with ioncube, but that's now fully possible due to some security restrictions that Docker has placed. Therefore, I need to modify the docker run command that Gitlab runs when I start a job for my Gitlab project.
According to this page...
In addition, a change to the Docker security options on the container will be required to allow for the licensing process to function by using the –security-opt seccomp:unconfined option to the docker run command.
I need to adding that extra parameter to the docker run call, but since Gitlab does that somewhere, I have no idea how to proceed.
Is there a way I can get Gitlab to include –security-opt seccomp:unconfined when I run a job?
EDIT: I host Gitlab on my own server.
The GitLab CI Process executes it's Pipeline stages/builds via a GitLab Runner. (https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/).
The GitLab Runner is registered to a GitLab instance or a specific GitLab Project. The configuration that you specify in the gitlab-ci.yml file is what gets executed by the Runner. In your case, you're specifying the GitLab Runner to execute a Docker container.
There is some advanced configuration that you can do with the GitLab Runners (https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/advanced-configuration.html). The setting that you are looking for is in this section: https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/advanced-configuration.html#the-runners-docker-section.
On the server that is hosting your GitLab Runner (or in the Docker instance that is hosting your GitLab Runner) modify the config.toml file (probably at /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml). You should see a [runners.docker] section if you've registered this Runner to execute Docker containers. It is in this section that you want to add in:
security_opt: ["seccomp:unconfined"]

Docker pipeline's "inside" not working in Jenkins slave running within Docker container

I'm having issues getting a Jenkins pipeline script to work that uses the Docker Pipeline plugin to run parts of the build within a Docker container. Both Jenkins server and slave run within Docker containers themselves.
Setup
Jenkins server running in a Docker container
Jenkins slave based on custom image (https://github.com/simulogics/protokube-jenkins-slave) running in a Docker container as well
Docker daemon container based on docker:1.12-dind image
Slave started like so: docker run --link=docker-daemon:docker --link=jenkins:master -d --name protokube-jenkins-slave -e EXTRA_PARAMS="-username xxx -password xxx -labels docker" simulogics/protokube-jenkins-slave
Basic Docker operations (pull, build and push images) are working just fine with this setup.
(Non-)Goals
I want the server to not have to know about Docker at all. This should be a characteristic of the slave/node.
I do not need dynamic allocation of slaves or ephemeral slaves. One slave started manually is quite enough for my purposes.
Ideally, I want to move away from my custom Docker image for the slave and instead use the inside function provided by the Docker pipeline plugin within a generic Docker slave.
Problem
This is a representative build step that's causing the issue:
image.inside {
stage ('Install Ruby Dependencies') {
sh "bundle install"
}
}
This would cause an error like this in the log:
sh: 1: cannot create /workspace/repo_branch-K5EM5XEVEIPSV2SZZUR337V7FG4BZXHD4VORYFYISRWIO3N6U67Q#tmp/durable-98bb4c3d/pid: Directory nonexistent
Previously, this warning would show:
71f4de289962-5790bfcc seems to be running inside container 71f4de28996233340c2aed4212248f1e73281f1cd7282a54a36ceeac8c65ec0a
but /workspace/repo_branch-K5EM5XEVEIPSV2SZZUR337V7FG4BZXHD4VORYFYISRWIO3N6U67Q could not be found among []
Interestingly enough, exactly this problem is described in CloudBees documentation for the plugin here https://go.cloudbees.com/docs/cloudbees-documentation/cje-user-guide/index.html#docker-workflow-sect-inside:
For inside to work, the Docker server and the Jenkins agent must use the same filesystem, so that the workspace can be mounted. The easiest way to ensure this is for the Docker server to be running on localhost (the same computer as the agent). Currently neither the Jenkins plugin nor the Docker CLI will automatically detect the case that the server is running remotely; a typical symptom would be errors from nested sh commands such as
cannot create /…#tmp/durable-…/pid: Directory nonexistent
or negative exit codes.
When Jenkins can detect that the agent is itself running inside a Docker container, it will automatically pass the --volumes-from argument to the inside container, ensuring that it can share a workspace with the agent.
Unfortunately, the detection described in the last paragraph doesn't seem to work.
Question
Since both my server and slave are running in Docker containers, what kid of volume mapping do I have to use to make it work?
I've seen variations of this issue, also with the agents powered by the kubernetes-plugin.
I think that for it to work the agent/jnlp container needs to share workspace with the build container.
By build container I am referring to the one that will run the bundle install command.
This could be possibly work via withArgs
The question is why would you want to do that? Most of the pipeline steps are being executed on master anyway and the actual build will run in the build container. What is the purpose of also using an agent?

Gitlab Continuous Integration on Docker

I have a Gitlab server running on a Docker container: gitlab docker
On Gitlab there is a project with a simple Makefile that runs pdflatex to build pfd file.
On the Docker container I installed texlive and make, I also installed docker runner, command:
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh
the .gitlab-ci.yml looks like follow:
.build:
script: &build_script
- make
build:
stage: test
tags:
- Documentation Build
script: *build
The job is stuck running and a message is shown:
This build is stuck, because the project doesn't have any runners online assigned to it
any idea?
The top comment on your link is spot on:
"Gitlab is good, but this container is absolutely bonkers."
Secondly looking at gitlab's own advice you should not be using this container on windows, ever.
If you want to use Gitlab-CI from a Gitlab Server, you should actually be installing a proper Gitlab server instance on a proper Supported Linux VM, with Omnibus, and should not attempt to use this container for a purpose it is manifestly unfit for: real production way to run Gitlab.
Gitlab-omnibus contains:
a persistent (not stateless!) data tier powered by postgres.
a chat server that's entire point in existing is to be a persistent log of your team chat.
not one, but a series of server processes that work together to give you gitlab server functionality and web admin/management frontend, in a design that does not seem ideal to me to be run in production inside docker.
an integrated CI build manager that is itself a Docker container manager. Your docker instance is going to contain a cache of other docker instances.
That this container was built by Gitlab itself is no indication you should actually use it for anything other than as a test/toy or for what Gitlab themselves actually use it for, which is probably to let people spin up Gitlab nightly builds, probably via kubernetes.
I think you're slightly confused here. Judging by this comment:
On the Docker container I installed texlive and make, I also installed
docker runner, command:
curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh
It seems you've installed docker inside docker and not actually installed any runners? This won't work if that's the case. The steps to get this running are:
Deploy a new gitlab runner. The quickest way to do this will be to deploy another docker container with the gitlab runner docker image. You can't run a runner inside the docker container you've deployed gitlab in. You'll need to make sure you select an executor (I suggest using the shell executor to get you started) and then you need to register the runner. There is more information about how to do this here. What isn't detailed here is that if you're using docker for gitlab and docker for gitlab-runner, you'll need to link the containers or set up a docker network so they can communicate with each other
Once you've deployed and registered the runner with gitlab, you will see it appear in http(s)://your-gitlab-server/admin/runners - from here you'll need to assign it to a project. You can also make it as "Shared" runner which will execute jobs from all projects.
Finally, add the .gitlab-ci.yml as you already have, and the build will work as expected.
Maybe you've set the wrong tags like me. Make sure the tag name with your available runner.
tags
- Documentation Build # tags is used to select specific Runners from the list of all Runners that are allowed to run this project.
see: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#tags

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