Can you share a docker service between steps?

[Mark McLaren]

Imagine I had a pipeline where step 1 created a Docker image and step 2 deployed it to a container registry.

I appreciate I could create a Docker image with both Java and Azure CLI installed and use that in one step but I'm interested if I could do it without that.

Without the "caches" sections, it doesn't look like the docker service in the example below keeps the image after the step has completed.

pipelines: 
  default: 
  - step: 
      image: adoptopenjdk/openjdk11
      services: 
        - docker 
      # caches: 
      # - docker
      script: 
        - docker pull docker/whalesay 
        - docker images 
   - step: 
       image: microsoft/azure-cli
       services: 
         - docker 
       # caches:
       # - docker 
       script: 
       - docker images

The whalesay image downloaded in step 1 is no longer in docker at the beginning of step 2.

If I add "caches" sections. It does seem to keep the downloaded docker image but the repository and tag details disappear?

"docker images" output from step 1:

REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE

docker/whalesay latest 6b362a9f73eb 4 years ago 247MB

"docker images" output from step 2:

REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE

<none> <none> 6b362a9f73eb 4 years ago 247MB

[Steven Vaccarella · Accepted solution]

Hi Mark,

The only way to share information between steps is using caches or artifacts (or an external service like an artifact repository). The recommended way to build and deploy a docker image is to do it all in a single step.

If you don't want to use a single image that includes all the required dependencies then another option is to use a "docker run" command to perform one of the operations. For example you can deploy using a "docker run" command within your script (based on an image that contains the azure cli).

Another option is to use a pipe such as https://bitbucket.org/microsoft/azure-cli-run/src/master/ to perform the deploy (the pipe actually just uses "docker run" under the hood).

[Xavier Serrat Bordas]

Hi!

I have a pipeline where we're running different docker containers connected to each other using docker-compose.

I'm wondering if we have a way to share the running containers between steps to run some tests in parallel.

Is it possible?

Thanks in advance!

Xavier.

[Xavier Serrat Bordas]

Sorry, I've moved this question to a separate question -> https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-questions/Can-you-share-running-containers-between-steps/qaq-p/2125488