Keeping docker builds in Gitlab CI with docker-compose

Question

I have a repository that includes three parts: frontend, admin and server. Each contains its own Dockerfile.

After building the image I wanted to add a test for admin . My tests go through but take a lot of time because it pulls the base image and builds everything from scratch on each stage (like 8mins per stage). This is my .gitlab-ci.yml

image: tmaier/docker-compose

services:
  - docker:dind

stages:
  - build
  - test

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - docker login -u $CI_DEPLOY_USER -p $CI_DEPLOY_PASSWORD $CI_REGISTRY
    - docker-compose build
    - docker-compose push

test:admin:
  stage: test
  script:
    - docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.test.yml up admin

I am not quite sure if I need to push/pull images between stages or if I should do that with artifacts/cache/whatever. As I understood I only need to push/pull if I want to deploy my images to another server. But also I added a docker-compose push which runs through but Gitlab doesn't show me any images in my registry.

I have been researching a lot on this but most example code I found was only about a single docker container and they didn't make use of docker-compose.

Any ideas? :)

Answer 1

Mark could you show the files docker-compose.yml docker-compose.test.yml? May be you try to push and pull different images. BTW try place docker login at before_script section that make it works at all jobs.

Answer 2

Gitlab currently has no way to share Docker images between stages as artifacts. They have had an outstanding feature request for this for 3 years.

You'll need to push the docker image to the docker registry and pull it in later stages that need it. (Or do everything related to the image in one stage)