How does one set up a Docker build step in Bamboo?

[Kira Resari]

I am currently despairing at the attempt of setting up a docker build step in Bamboo.

For starters, I just want to create a build configuration that runs the hello-world image as a proof of confluence. So far, I have failed.

I have tried following the steps on https://confluence.atlassian.com/bamboo0609/using-bamboo/jobs-and-tasks/configuring-tasks/configuring-the-docker-task-in-bamboo , but to no avail.

My setup is this:
We have Bamboo installed on an Ubuntu server. I also installed Docker on that server and added the `bamboo` user to the `docker` usergroup and restarted the server to make sure the permission change takes effect. At this point, `docker run hello-world` works when I run it directly on the server. I can also confirm that this is the server that Bamboo runs on since Bamboo went offline whenever I restarted the server that I installed Docker on.

Then, I have added the docker capability to the server (the agent is the default agent, so it inherits this capability from the server). As the docker path, I have tried various things, none of which worked (aka, the following errors remained the same for each of these):

* `/snap/docker` (the first folder that I found on a manual search)
* `/usr/bin/docker` (the recommended path, though on inspecting the Ubuntu server I quickly found out that no `docker` folder exists under `/usr/bin` on the Ubuntu derver)
* `/var/snap/docker/common/var-lib-docker ` (the path that Docker returns as its Root Directory when I run `docker info` on the Ubuntu server)
* `/var/snap/docker` (for good measure)

Now, for the runner, I have tried two different approaches.

First, I tried using a Docker runner with the following settings:
**Command:** Run a Docker container
**Docker image:** hello-world

This returns the following error message:
```
┊
Error occurred while running Task 'Hello World Docker Test(5)' of type com.atlassian.bamboo.plugins.bamboo-docker-plugin:task.docker.cli.com.atlassian.bamboo.task.TaskException: Failed to execute task
┊
Caused by: com.atlassian.bamboo.docker.DockerException: Error running Docker run command
┊
Caused by: com.atlassian.utils.process.ProcessException: Error executing /snap/docker run --volume /var/atlassian/application-data/bamboo/xml-data/build-dir/CAM-DOC-JOB1:/data --workdir /data --rm hello-world
┊
```

The second was just to run a shell runner for the command `docker run hello-world`, which returned the following error:
```
docker: not found
```

At this point, I feel like I'm out of ideas. Everything points towards Bamboo for some reason not finding Docker on the server, even though I can clearly confirm that it is there. I have tried various different approaches of telling Bamboo where to find Docker, but none of them have worked.

It's obvious that I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what. Or maybe the problem lies in an entirely different direction altogether? Anyway, I would be grateful for any insight shared on this matter.

[Kira Resari · Accepted solution]

Okay, I found out what caused this strange behaviour.

The problem was that I installed Docker using `sudo snap install docker`, and apparently installing docker via snap causes problems with Bamboo.

So I got it to work using these simple steps:

1. [Server] Uninstalled Snap Docker using `sudo snap remove docker`
2. [Server] Reinstalled Docker using `sudo apt install docker.io`
3. [Bamboo] Changed the path to Docker in the Server Capabilities to `/usr/bin/docker`

After that, the hello-world image build succeeded and printed the expected output to the log.