Run docker-compose on Container Optimized OS (GCE) with access to GCR & GAR

docker-compose-gcr-gar.md

docker-compose on Container Optimized OS (GCE) with access to GCR & GAR

For Docker Compose V2.0, please read the comment below.

Docker Compose V1.0

Since GCE's Container-Optimized OS do not include docker-compose by default. So, we need to use the official docker/compose image as a workaround. However, docker/compose cannot access GCR or GAR to pull private images. Therefore we have to create a custom docker-compose image which is authenticated to GCR / GAR.

1. Create a file (i.e docker-compose-gar or whatever name)

mkdir docker-compose-gar && cd docker-compose-gar

2. Create a Dockerfile as follow

FROM docker/compose:alpine-1.27.4

ENV VERSION=2.0.4
ENV OS=linux
ENV ARCH=amd64

# Install docker-credential-gcr
RUN wget -O - "https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/docker-credential-gcr/releases/download/v${VERSION}/docker-credential-gcr_${OS}_${ARCH}-${VERSION}.tar.gz" \
    | tar xz --to-stdout ./docker-credential-gcr > /usr/bin/docker-credential-gcr && chmod +x /usr/bin/docker-credential-gcr

RUN docker-credential-gcr version
RUN docker-credential-gcr configure-docker --include-artifact-registry
CMD docker-compose

3. Build docker-compose-gar image

docker build -t docker-compose-gar .

4. Add a docker-compose alias your shell configuration file, e.g. .bashrc

echo alias docker-compose="'"'docker run --rm \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    -v "$PWD:$PWD" \
    -w="$PWD" \
    docker-compose-gar'"'" >> ~/.bashrc

5. Run docker-compose

Now you can pull the private images from GCR / GAR

Try:

docker-compose pull

or

docker-compose up

Ref

• Running Docker Compose with Docker
• Setting up authentication for Docker

Set up authentication for Docker

docker-credential-gcr configure-docker --registries=HOSTNAME-LIST

Where HOSTNAME-LIST is a comma-separated list of repository hostnames to add to the credential helper configuration.

for example,

docker-credential-gcr configure-docker --registries=us-central1-docker.pkg.dev,asia-northeast1-docker.pkg.dev

Ref