How to use GitLab CI with a custom Docker image?

Question

I made a simple Dockerfile:

FROM openjdk
EXPOSE 8080

and built an image using:

docker build -t test .

I installed and configured a docker GitLab CI runner and now I would like to use this runner with my test image. So I wrote the following .gitlab-ci.yml file:

image: test

run:
  script:
    - echo "Hello world!"

But to my disappointment, the local test image that I can use on my machine was not found.

Running with gitlab-ci-multi-runner 9.4.2 (6d06f2e)
  on martin-docker-rawip (70747a61)
Using Docker executor with image test ...
Using docker image sha256:fa91c6ea64ce4b9b44672c6e56eed8312d0ec2afc80730cbee7754bc448ea22b for predefined container...
Pulling docker image test ...
ERROR: Job failed: Error response from daemon: repository test not found: does not exist or no pull access

I do not even know what is going on anymore. How can I make the runner aware of this image that I made?

Answer 1

I had the same question. And I found the answer here: https://forum.gitlab.com/t/runner-cant-use-local-docker-images/5507/6

Add the following in the /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml

[runners.docker]
# more config for the runner here...
pull_policy = "if-not-present"

More info here: https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/executors/docker.html#how-pull-policies-work

My Dockerfile

FROM node:latest
RUN apt-get update -y && apt-get install openssh-client rsync -y

On the runner I build the image:

docker build -t node_rsync .

The .gitlab-ci.yml in the project using this runner.

image: node_rsync

job:
  stage: deploy
  before_script:
    # now in the custom docker image
    #- 'which ssh-agent || ( apt-get update -y && apt-get install openssh-client -y )'
    - mkdir -p ~/.ssh
    - eval $(ssh-agent -s)
    - '[[ -f /.dockerenv ]] && echo -e "Host *\n\tStrictHostKeyChecking no\n\n" > ~/.ssh/config'
    - ssh-add <(tr '@' '\n' <<< "$STAGING_PRIVATE_KEY" | base64 --decode)
    # now in the custom docker image
    #- apt-get install -y rsync
  script:
    - rsync -rav -e ssh --exclude='.git/' --exclude='.gitlab-ci.yml' --delete-excluded ./ $STAGING_USER@$STAGING_SERVER:./deploy/
  only:
    - master
  tags:
    - ssh