Running Docker (and Docker Compose) inside WSL?

[Luc45]

Has anyone had any luck running Docker and Docker Compose inside WSL in GitHub Actions?

[Vampire]

As only WSL 1 is available, I don't think you can. As far as I remember it was only possible to use the Docker CLI inside WSL 1 to control a Docker daemon actually running on Windows.

[Vampire]

Just in case you missed it, since some time also WSLv2 is possible and also supported by this action, so now you should be able to use Docker inside WSL in GHA. :-)

[Luc45]

Thanks, @Vampire!

[pseusys]

Do you by any chance have an example of setting up docker inside of the action?

[Vampire]

Just follow the normal docker installation instructions?

[pseusys]

Yes, thank you. After all (in case it could be useful for anyone following my path in the future), I think that for less complex projects it could be really useful just using podman as a replacement, since it does not require any complex installation: just adding podman, podman-docker and podman-compose in additional-packages seems to be enough.

[Vampire]

Nowadays I would practically always use podman over docker.
It should to all relevant parts a drop-in replacement and should not be restricted by project complexity.

Having said that, installing docker should also not be more complex, depending on which distribution you use.

For example with Debian or Ubuntu you would use the docker.io package.

[pseusys]

Hello @Vampire!
Thank you for your great action, it is very helpful! However, for now unfortunately I couldn't use it for one of my projects because of Docker setup. I use the Docker convenience script (curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh) and for some reason I think that Docker is not getting installed correctly: when I start my docker compose project in WSL all the bridge interfaces appear to be DOWN (as well as docker0 itself) - and all the routes to my containers are also linkdown, meaning containers can not be accessed. I have never faced an issue like that neither on my Linux or Windows WSL machines. If you (or any other action users) have ever succeeded in running a docker compose project with bridge networks in WSL - could you please share your setup? Thank you a lot in advance!

[Vampire]

Didn't you say you use podman now instead and it works?

I never used docker inside WSL on GHA so far, sorry.

Maybe it works better if you do not use the script install method, but the OS packages, as I described above. 🤷‍♂️

[pseusys]

I tried all of the setups. For one container setup podman works fine, but then I went further to launch a multiple-network and multiple-container project - and failed... let me know if you have any more updates. Bridge networks just seem fail to start.

[Vampire]

I recommend you ask in some docker community instead.