Hi! Is there a pants plugin that allows to build docker images declaratively instead of using dockerfiles without using the docker daemon?

For the Docker backend in Pantsbuild, you can provide the instructions inline, so you don’t have to provide a separate Dockerfile (it will be generated for you), but it does still rely on the docker daemon to actually build the image.

Yes, that's how I thought it would be. I think bazels rules_docker work without docker and would like to have something similar in pants

That would be a nice addition to the container support, if we could use BuildKit or similar directly, rather than relying on a Docker client talking to a daemon.

@some-farmer-97614 could you open a ticket for that feature request at https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/new/choose ? that way we can track work on it

It would be great if we could clarify this further before that. I wanted: 1. To be able to build without root permissions or a docker daemon running (e.g. build inside containers) 2. Have minimal and reproducible container images build without DOCKERFILE Bazel rules_docker seems to offer (1) & (2) at the cost of using it’s own configuration language and not having RUN instructions. However (2) also goes against pants philosophy a bit, as pants seems to prefer to integrate with the tools directly and not offer it’s own way. I am not sure if using e.g.

BuildKit

also could offer (1), as I don’t know the state of rootless builds in

BuildKit

I’ve no direct experience with it, but there is some documentation regarding running buildkitd rootless: https://github.com/moby/buildkit/blob/master/docs/rootless.md

However (2) also goes against pants philosophy a bit, as pants seems to prefer to integrate with the tools directly and not offer it’s own way.

You're right. We indeed in general try to keep magic to a minimum and integrate with tools that already work really well -- make them even better by combining tools in powerful tools, with a consistent interface. However, we also are very motivated to solve the real problems users face, so happy to get creative exploring how we can get this working 🙂

Hehehe, I’d be happy if I get (1)

Great! So (1) sounds like two feature requests? a) build Docker w/o Docker daemon running, probably via BuildKit b) have that feature work in rootless mode, https://github.com/moby/buildkit/blob/master/docs/rootless.md

worth considering is if buildkit is packaged attractively in https://github.com/genuinetools/img

Sounds like the spec is clear enough to become a ticket. @some-farmer-97614 would you open one, so folks can start developing this further?

Here you go: https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/issues/14395

Thanks!