You may find that you need to run Docker commands inside a target. For those cases Earthly offers WITH DOCKER. WITH DOCKER will initialize a Docker daemon that can be used in the context of a RUN command.
Whenever you need to use WITH DOCKER we recommend (though it is not required) that you use Earthly's own Docker in Docker (dind) image: earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0.
Notice WITH DOCKER creates a block of code that has an END keyword. Everything that happens within this block is going to take place within our earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0 container.
Pulling an Image
hello:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
WITH DOCKER --pull hello-world
RUN docker run hello-world
END
You can see in the command above that we can pass a flag to WITH DOCKER telling it to pull an image from Docker Hub. We can pass other flags to load in artifacts built by other targets--load or even images defined by docker-compose--compose. These images will be available within the context of WITH DOCKER's docker daemon.
Loading an Image
We can load in an image created by another target with the --load flag.
my-hello-world:
FROM ubuntu
CMD echo "hello world"
SAVE IMAGE my-hello:latest
hello:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
WITH DOCKER --load hello:latest=+my-hello-world
RUN docker run hello:latest
END
A Real World Example
One common use case for WITH DOCKER is running integration tests that require other services. In this case we need to set up a redis service for our tests. For this we can user a docker-compose.yml.
VERSION 0.8
FROM golang:1.15-alpine3.13
WORKDIR /go-workdir
deps:
COPY go.mod go.sum ./
RUN go mod download
SAVE ARTIFACT go.mod AS LOCAL go.mod
SAVE ARTIFACT go.sum AS LOCAL go.sum
test-setup:
FROM +deps
COPY main.go .
COPY main_integration_test.go .
ENV CGO_ENABLED=0
ENTRYPOINT ["go", "test", "github.com/earthly/earthly/examples/go"]
SAVE IMAGE test:latest
integration-tests:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
COPY docker-compose.yml ./
WITH DOCKER --compose docker-compose.yml --load tests:latest=+test-setup
RUN docker run --network=default_go/part6_default tests:latest
END
When we use the --compose flag, Earthly will start up the services defined in the docker-compose file for us. In this case, we built a separate image that copies in our test files and uses the command to run the tests as its ENTRYPOINT. We can then load this image into our WITH DOCKER command. Note that loading an image will not run it by default, we need to explicitly run the image after we load it.
You'll need to use --allow-privileged (or -P for short) to run this example.
{"name":"api","version":"1.0.0","description":"","main":"index.js","scripts": {"test":"echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1" },"author":"","license":"ISC","dependencies": {"cors":"^2.8.5","express":"^4.17.1","http-proxy-middleware":"^1.0.4","pg":"^8.7.3" }}
./api/package-lock.json (empty)
./api/server.js
constexpress=require('express');constpath=require('path');constcors=require("cors");constapp=express(),bodyParser=require("body-parser");port =3080;app.use(bodyParser.json());app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'../my-app/build')));app.use(cors());constusers= [ {'first_name':'Lee','last_name':'Earth' }]app.get('/api/users', (req, res) => {console.log('api/users called!')res.json(users);});app.listen(port,'0.0.0.0', () => {console.log(`Server listening on the port::${port}`);});
The Earthfile is at the root of the directory.
./Earthfile
VERSION 0.8
FROM node:13.10.1-alpine3.11
WORKDIR /js-example
app-deps:
COPY ./app/package.json ./
COPY ./app/package-lock.json ./
RUN npm install
# Output these back in case npm install changes them.
SAVE ARTIFACT package.json AS LOCAL ./app/package.json
SAVE ARTIFACT package-lock.json AS LOCAL ./app/package-lock.json
build-app:
FROM +app-deps
COPY ./app/src ./app/src
RUN mkdir -p ./app/dist && cp ./app/src/index.html ./app/dist/
RUN cd ./app && npx webpack
SAVE ARTIFACT ./app/dist /dist AS LOCAL ./app/dist
app-docker:
FROM +app-deps
ARG tag='latest'
COPY +build-app/dist ./app/dist
EXPOSE 8080
ENTRYPOINT ["/js-example/node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server", "./app/dist"]
SAVE IMAGE js-example:$tag
api-deps:
COPY ./api/package.json ./
COPY ./api/package-lock.json ./
RUN npm install
# Output these back in case npm install changes them.
SAVE ARTIFACT package.json AS LOCAL ./api/package.json
SAVE ARTIFACT package-lock.json AS LOCAL ./api/package-lock.json
api-docker:
FROM +api-deps
ARG tag='latest'
COPY ./api/server.js .
RUN pwd
RUN ls
EXPOSE 3080
ENTRYPOINT ["node", "server.js"]
SAVE IMAGE js-api:$tag
# Run your app and api side by side
app-with-api:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
RUN apk add curl
WITH DOCKER \
--load app:latest=+app-docker \
--load api:latest=+api-docker
RUN docker run -d -p 3080:3080 api && \
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 app && \
sleep 5 && \
curl 0.0.0.0:8080 | grep 'Getting Started' && \
curl 0.0.0.0:3080/api/users | grep 'Earth'
END
Now you can run earthly -P +app-with-api to run the app and api side-by-side.
VERSION 0.8
FROM openjdk:8-jdk-alpine
RUN apk add --update --no-cache gradle
WORKDIR /java-example
deps:
COPY build.gradle ./
RUN gradle build
build:
FROM +deps
COPY src src
RUN gradle build
RUN gradle install
SAVE ARTIFACT build/install/java-example/bin AS LOCAL build/bin
SAVE ARTIFACT build/install/java-example/lib AS LOCAL build/lib
docker:
COPY +build/bin bin
COPY +build/lib lib
ARG tag='latest'
ENTRYPOINT ["/java-example/bin/java-example"]
SAVE IMAGE java-example:$tag
with-postgresql:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
COPY ./docker-compose.yml .
RUN apk update
RUN apk add postgresql-client
WITH DOCKER --compose docker-compose.yml --load app:latest=+docker
RUN while ! pg_isready --host=localhost --port=5432; do sleep 1; done ;\
docker run --network=default_java/part6_default app
END
VERSION 0.8
FROM python:3
WORKDIR /code
build:
COPY ./requirements.txt .
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
COPY . .
run-tests:
FROM earthly/dind:alpine-3.19-docker-25.0.5-r0
COPY ./docker-compose.yml .
COPY ./tests ./tests
RUN apk update
RUN apk add postgresql-client
WITH DOCKER --compose docker-compose.yml --load app:latest=+docker
RUN while ! pg_isready --host=localhost --port=5432; do sleep 1; done ;\
docker run --network=default_python/part6_default app python3 ./tests/test_db_connection.py
END