Gitlab docker runner problem with path. gitlab-ci.yml

Question

I'm trying to run a pipeline in Gitlab using gitlab-ci.yml file and a runner which can run docker images, but I got an error because the runner cannot find the right path to the Dockerfile

this is my yml file

    image: docker:latest
services:
- docker:dind

stages:
- build
- test
- release

variables:
  TEST_IMAGE: 193.206.43.98:5555/apfeed/apserver:$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
  RELEASE_IMAGE: 193.206.43.98:5555/ap:latest

before_script:
  - docker login -u "$CI_REGISTRY_USER" -p "$CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD" "$CI_REGISTRY"

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - docker build --pull -t $TEST_IMAGE .
    - docker push $TEST_IMAGE

test:
  stage: test
  services:
    - mongo:bionic
  script:
    - docker pull $TEST_IMAGE
    - docker run $TEST_IMAGE npm test

release:
  stage: release
  script:
    - docker pull $TEST_IMAGE
    - docker tag $TEST_IMAGE $RELEASE_IMAGE
    - docker push $RELEASE_IMAGE
  only:

And this is the error I get

 $ docker build --pull -t $TEST_IMAGE .
unable to prepare context: unable to evaluate symlinks in Dockerfile path: lstat /home/gitlab-runner/builds/WsYiLtmC/0/al/apfeed/Dockerfile: no such file or directory
ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

I tried several different ways of write the path in the line TEST IMAGE but none seems to work

Answer 1

You must have Dockerfile in the project root directory

OR

You can pass the relative path to your Dockerfile if it exists in a subdirectory in the project repo.

eg docker build --pull -t $TEST_IMAGE -f./some-dir/Dockerfile.

some-dir == the directory inside your project repo where Dockerfile is located.

The project repo is first cloned into CI_PROJECT_DIR before each job is executed and CI_PROJECT_DIR is the dir where the.gitlab-ci.yml is gonna exist and the job scripts also run from that directory as well.

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/README.html