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DinD (Docker in Docker)

Since v0.36.0

Introduction

The Testcontainers module for DinD (Docker in Docker).

Adding this module to your project dependencies

Please run the following command to add the DinD module to your Go dependencies:

go get github.com/testcontainers/testcontainers-go/modules/dind

Usage example

ctx := context.Background()

dindContainer, err := dind.Run(ctx, "docker:28.0.1-dind")
defer func() {
    if err := testcontainers.TerminateContainer(dindContainer); err != nil {
        log.Printf("failed to terminate container: %s", err)
    }
}()
if err != nil {
    log.Printf("failed to start container: %s", err)
    return
}

Module Reference

Run function

The DinD module exposes one entrypoint function to create the DinD container, and this function receives three parameters:

func Run(ctx context.Context, img string, opts ...testcontainers.ContainerCustomizer) (*Container, error)
  • context.Context, the Go context.
  • string, the Docker image to use.
  • testcontainers.ContainerCustomizer, a variadic argument for passing options.

Image

If you need to set a different DinD Docker image, you can set a valid Docker image as the second argument in the Run function. E.g. Run(context.Background(), "docker:28.0.1-dind").

Container Options

When starting the DinD container, you can pass options in a variadic way to configure it.

The following options are exposed by the testcontainers package.

Basic Options

Lifecycle Options

Files & Mounts Options

Build Options

Logging Options

Image Options

Networking Options

Advanced Options

Experimental Options

Container Methods

The DinD container exposes the following methods:

Host

The Host method returns the DinD URL, to be used for connecting to the Docker API using a Docker client. It'll be returned in the format of string.

host, err := dindContainer.Host(ctx)
if err != nil {
    log.Printf("failed to get docker host: %s", err)
    return
}
cli, err := client.NewClientWithOpts(client.WithHost(host), client.WithAPIVersionNegotiation())
if err != nil {
    log.Printf("failed to create docker client: %s", err)
    return
}

LoadImage

The LoadImage method loads an image into the docker in docker daemon.

This is useful for testing images generated locally without having to push them to a public docker registry.

The images must be already present in the node running the test. DockerProvider offers a method for pulling images, which can be used from the test code to ensure the image is present locally before loading them to the daemon.