How to mount docker socket as volume in docker container with correct group

Question

I want to run a Jenkins instance in a docker container.

I want Jenkins itself to be able to spin up docker containers as slaves to run tests in.

It seems the best way to do this is to use

docker run -v /var/run.docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -p 8080:8080 -ti my-jenkins-image

source

The Dockerfile I'm using is

FROM jenkins
COPY plugins.txt /usr/share/jenkins/plugins.txt
RUN /usr/local/bin/plugins.sh /usr/share/jenkins/plugins.txt

USER root
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y docker.io
RUN usermod -aG docker jenkins
USER jenkins

If I start a bash session in my running container and run docker info on my image I get

$ docker info
FATA[0000] Get http:///var/run/docker.sock/v1.18/info: dial unix /var/run/docker.sock: permission denied. Are you trying to connect to a TLS-enabled daemon without TLS?

And if I run the bash session as root

docker exec -u 0 -ti cocky_mccarthy bash
root@5dbd0efad2b0:/# docker info
Containers: 42
Images: 50
...

So I guess the docker group I'm adding the Jenkins user to is the group for the internal docker hence the socket is not readable without sudo. That's kind of a problem as the Jenkins docker plugin etc are not set up to use sudo.

How can I mount the socket so it can be used from the image without sudo?

Answer 1

If you're like me, and have come to this post many years later, unsatisfied with the given solutions, I'd like to propose one more.

One other thing you can do is use socat to redirect the mounted docker socket to a different socked with the correct permissions. There are different ways to do this, but one solution might look like the following.

First, when mounting the Docker socket in your run command, mount it in a slightly different location, e.g.

docker run ... -v "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/host_docker.sock"

This will get the socket in your container, albeit likely with the incorrect group ownership.

Then, as part of your entrypoint into the container, start up a socat redirecct. This command will need to be run as root, but other than that, everything else can run as normal.

Example entrypoint that simply runs an SSH server (i.e. a container that, when run, sits there any allows users to ssh into it). Then entrypoint itself runs as root, but you could have it run as another user and just use sudo for your socat call (I think). Note that since the socat call is running from within the container, the user=root,group=docker will be correct no matter what:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

socat UNIX-CONNECT:/var/run/host_docker.sock UNIX-LISTEN:/var/run/docker.sock,user=root,group=docker,mode=660 &
/usr/sbin/sshd -D

More discussion of this solution can be found in this blog post

Answer 2

A bit late, but this might help other users who are struggling with the same problem:

The problem here is that the docker group on your docker host has a different group id from the id of the docker group inside your container. Since the daemon only cares about the id and not about the name of the group your solution will only work if these id's match by accident.

The way to solve this is by either using tcp instead of using a unix socket by using the -H option when starting Docker engine. You should be very careful with this, as this allows anyone who has access to this port to gain root access to your system.

A more secure way of fixing this is making sure that the docker group inside the container ends up having the same group id as the docker group outside of the container. You can do this using build arguments for your docker build:

Dockerfile:

FROM jenkinsci
ARG DOCKER_GROUP_ID

USER root
RUN curl -o /root/docker.tgz https://get.docker.com/builds/Linux/x86_64/docker-1.12.5.tgz && tar -C /root -xvf /root/docker.tgz && mv /root/docker/docker /usr/local/bin/docker && rm -rf /root/docker*
RUN curl -L https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.7.1/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m` > /usr/local/bin/docker-compose && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
RUN groupadd -g $DOCKER_GROUP_ID docker && gpasswd -a jenkins docker
USER jenkins

And then building it using

docker build \ 
  --build-arg DOCKER_GROUP_ID=`getent group docker | \ 
  cut -d: -f3` -t my-jenkins-image .

After this you can run your image and have docker access as non-root

docker run \ 
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \ 
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -ti my-jenkins-image

Because this solution depends on supplying the correct group id to the docker daemon when the image is being built, this image would need to be built on the machine(s) where it is being used. If you build the image, push it and someone else pulls it on their machine, chances are that the group id's won't match again.

Answer 3

I used your dockerfile but did a small edit:

FROM jenkins
COPY plugins.txt /usr/share/jenkins/plugins.txt
RUN /usr/local/bin/plugins.sh /usr/share/jenkins/plugins.txt

USER root
RUN apt-get update
RUN groupadd docker && gpasswd -a jenkins docker
USER jenkins

After building the image I can start it using (I'm on centos7):

docker run -d \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
     -v $(which docker):/usr/bin/docker:ro \
     -v /lib64/libdevmapper.so.1.02:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdevmapper.so.1.02 \
     -v /lib64/libudev.so.0:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.0 \
     -p 8080:8080 \
     --name jenkins \
     --privileged=true -t -i \
test/jenkins

You tried to install the package docker.io inside your image. But this package is also on your host (otherwise it's not possible to run docker containers on it). So It's recommended to mount this to your container instead of installing it in your docker file. I think the mounted /lib64/... is specific for Centos 7.

$ docker exec -it 9fc27d5fcec1 bash
jenkins@9fc27d5fcec1:/$ whoami 
jenkins
jenkins@9fc27d5fcec1:/$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                               NAMES
9fc27d5fcec1        test                "/bin/tini -- /usr/lo"   6 minutes ago       Up 6 minutes        0.0.0.0:8080->8080/tcp, 50000/tcp   jenkins