Option to not do docker pull?

[rowleya]

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Describe the enhancement
If I have a local runner and a locally maintained docker image i.e. not stored on a repository, I would like to avoid the "docker pull" step, which then fails.

Code Snippet

name: Self Hosted Tests

on: [push]

jobs:
  integration_tests:
      runs-on: self-hosted
      container:
          image: python3.6:latest
      steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: What java version do we have
        run: java -version

Additional information
The image python3.6:latest is in my self-hosted runner's docker images. It doesn't exist in DockerHub or any other repository, and I don't want it to, because it should only ever be run on my self-hosted runner.

NOTE: if the feature request has been agreed upon then the assignee will create an ADR. See docs/adrs/README.md

[baparham]

Perhaps the design discussions belong here instead. I just commented over on the PR with a question about whether it would work to instead support specifying a pull: true/false option to the jobs.<job-id>.container syntax.

#800 (comment)

[rowleya]

Yes, I agree that this would also work

[baparham]

without doing any of the coding, my hunch tells me that doing it that way would bypass the "which exceptions to handle" issue entirely.

[rowleya]

I think I was just avoiding the "how do you add a new config option" at this point; I agree that this should skip this part, since it will just do the pull if asked and if that fails, it would fail in the same way as previously.

[baparham]

Yeah, that sounds a bit more complicated now that you mention it. Perhaps #694 can provide some insight on adding the new option though?

[rowleya]

Thanks for the pointer - I will have a look and see.

[rowleya]

I think I have done the right things in #1086 but happy for someone to review this to tell me otherwise!

[AllanOricil]

Up

[AllanOricil]

docker does not pull the image again if it exists already:

But you have to publish the image to a registry so that the pull ackowledges that the image has not changed. To avoid using a remote registry, you can start a local registry in the runner docker run registry, and publish the image to this registry. Then, in the workflow job, write this:

container:
    image: <IP_ADDRESS>:<PORT>/<IMAGE_NAME>:<IMAGE_TAG>

[ddresslerlegalplans]

docker does not pull the image again if it exists already:

I'm not experiencing this when using ecr. It pulls the same image even if sha digest match and it was used in a different job in the same workflow. Is this a feature of ghcr.io that it'll recognize that it already downloaded the latest?

[AllanOricil]

No, it is a docker pull feature. It worked for me. Are you sure you are running on the same host?

[ddresslerlegalplans]

This occurs when running on the same worflow file but different jobs. I guess it doesn't share the previous pull from a previous job in the workflow.

[AllanOricil]

No, they do not. Unless you run the job in the same runner.

[sdarwin]

It would be really helpful if these options were supported:

pull: if-not-exists # only pull the image if not found in the local cache
pull: always # always pull the newest version of the image
pull: never # never pull the image and always use the image in the local cache

This allows baking docker images into AMIs, and use if-not-exists so it only downloads when necessary.

[QuarkLarry]

It would be really helpful if these options were supported:

pull: if-not-exists # only pull the image if not found in the local cache
pull: always # always pull the newest version of the image
pull: never # never pull the image and always use the image in the local cache

This allows baking docker images into AMIs, and use if-not-exists so it only downloads when necessary.

Realy helpful with these options.

[ricardo-noyolalozano]

I have a job where I pull the images I need and then another that uses the images to run a container. they are running on the same runner and it is still trying to pull from the ECR