Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/rootless/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

[abrokwasoft]

I do find your approach for setting up a rootless GitHub Actions Runner Docker image really great! So I decided to give it a try.

Unfortunately I'm facing some issues when executing the hello-world.yml you provide.

Runner is started with:

docker run --restart always --name github-runner \
  -e ACCESS_TOKEN="<MY_ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
  -e REPO_URL="https://github.com/abrokwasoft/test-repo/" \
  -e RUNNER_NAME="foo-runner" \
  -e RUNNER_WORKDIR="/tmp/github-runner-your-repo" \
  -e RUNNER_GROUP="my-group" \
  -e LABELS="my-label,other-label" \
  msyea/github-actions-runner:latest

Runner starts and registers at GitHub successfully so that it is able to execute the build job defined in hello-world.yml.

It fails with following error: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/rootless/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

Do you have any idea about the route cause of that issue?

Below you find the entire raw log of the executed build job:

2021-04-02T13:56:36.4294469Z ##[section]Starting: Request a runner to run this job
2021-04-02T13:56:36.5910584Z Found online and idle self-hosted runner in current repository that matches the required labels: 'self-hosted , linux'
2021-04-02T13:56:36.6512852Z ##[section]Finishing: Request a runner to run this job
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5162469Z Current runner version: '2.277.1'
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5187547Z Runner name: 'foo-runner'
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5189585Z Runner group name: 'Default'
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5192750Z Machine name: '550bf42c5784'
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5205129Z ##[group]GITHUB_TOKEN Permissions
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5207069Z Actions: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5207586Z Checks: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5208075Z Contents: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5208600Z Deployments: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5209117Z Issues: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5209596Z Metadata: read
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5210212Z OrganizationPackages: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5211103Z Packages: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5211802Z PullRequests: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5212372Z RepositoryProjects: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5212950Z SecurityEvents: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5213438Z Statuses: write
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5214077Z ##[endgroup]
2021-04-02T13:56:42.5218396Z Prepare workflow directory
2021-04-02T13:56:42.6295996Z Prepare all required actions
2021-04-02T13:56:42.7539112Z ##[group]Pull down action image 'hello-world'
2021-04-02T13:56:42.7653983Z ##[command]/usr/local/bin/docker pull hello-world
2021-04-02T13:56:42.8752838Z Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/rootless/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?
2021-04-02T13:56:42.8755714Z Using default tag: latest
2021-04-02T13:56:43.0413525Z ##[warning]Docker pull failed with exit code 1, back off 9.06 seconds before retry.
2021-04-02T13:56:52.0936230Z ##[command]/usr/local/bin/docker pull hello-world
2021-04-02T13:56:52.6591294Z Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/rootless/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?
2021-04-02T13:56:52.6595576Z Using default tag: latest
2021-04-02T13:56:52.7893670Z ##[warning]Docker pull failed with exit code 1, back off 2.286 seconds before retry.
2021-04-02T13:56:55.0820613Z ##[command]/usr/local/bin/docker pull hello-world
2021-04-02T13:56:55.6990875Z Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/rootless/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?
2021-04-02T13:56:55.6994025Z Using default tag: latest
2021-04-02T13:56:55.7404010Z ##[endgroup]
2021-04-02T13:56:55.7628985Z ##[error]Docker pull failed with exit code 1
2021-04-02T13:56:55.7789156Z Cleaning up orphan processes

[msyea]

Sorry it's taken so long to respond. @abrokwasoft you need the --privileged flag. I'll update the docs today.

Also FYI I'll be publishing a kubernetes solution soon.

[sremp]

@msyea First of all I just wanted to thank you for all of your work on this rootless solution for Github Runners.

I'm running to this same issue but when deploying the image to ECS Fargate. Unfortunately, privileged mode is not an option on Fargate, and ECS EC2 allows privileged mode, both of which make the rootless approach somewhat moot.

Is there any way to successfully run this image in Fargate and have builds executing?

EDIT: Fargate is a dead end, unfortunately. I was able to get this image working just fine on ECS EC2. Thanks.