How do I push service container in Github Actions to the registry?

Question

I have a Github Action that needs to grab database dump, put it into dabase, run SQL queries on it, and push the new containerised version of the database to ghcr. How do I push the service container instead of the main one?

What I have right now:

Custom container that has Ubuntu image with python and postgres tools like psql, pg_dump etc.;

Action itself:

name: My action
on: push

jobs:
  container-job:
    runs-on:
      - self-hosted
    container: ghcr.io/user/my-container:latest
    services:
      postgres:
        image: postgres:15.3
        ports:
          - 5432:5432
        options: >-
          --health-cmd pg_isready
          --health-interval 10s
          --health-timeout 5s
          --health-retries 5
          -e POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=trust
          -e POSTGRES_DB=somedatabase
          -e POSTGRES_USER=someuser

    steps:
      - name: Check out repository code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Create database dump
        uses: tj-actions/pg-dump@v2.3
        with:
          database_url: 'postgres://user@database-host:5432/database-name'
          path: 'backups/backup.sql'
          options: ''

      - name: Restore db data from dump
        run: psql -U user -d database-name -h postgres -p 5432 < backups/backup.sql

      - name: Modify data
        run: python3 my-script-for-connecting-to-db-and-modifying-data.py

docker/build-push-action@v4 seems to be trying to push the ghcr.io/user/my-container:latest instead of the service database unless I'm doing something wrong (which I probably am).

i don't see `docker/build-push-action@v4` in your yaml. where's that happening? — Rick Rackow, Aug 08 '23 at 10:06

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 08 '23 at 10:13

You are editing a running docker-container. These changes are not "pushable" because they are not part of a docker-image. Maybe this explanation helps you. Docker image vs container.

You can dump the database after your changes again (pg_dump) and build a docker-image based on this data (pg_restore).
But I think it is a bad idea to write db-data into a docker-image.

How do I push service container in Github Actions to the registry?

1 Answers1