Role of docker-in-docker (dind) service in gitlab ci

Question

According to the official gitlab documentation, one way to enable docker build within ci pipelines, is to make use of the dind service (in terms of gitlab-ci services).

However, as it is always the case with ci jobs running on docker executors, the docker:latest image is also needed.

Could someone explain:

• what is the difference between the docker:dind and the docker:latest images?
• (most importantly): why are both the service and the docker image needed (e.g. as indicated in this example, linked to from the github documentation) to perform e.g. a docker build whithin a ci job? doesn't the docker:latest image (within which the job will be executed!) incorporate the docker daemon (and I think the docker-compose also), which are the tools necessary for the commands we need (e.g. docker build, docker push etc)?

Unless I am wrong, the question more or less becomes:

Why a docker client and a docker daemon cannot reside in the same docker (enabled) container

Answer 1

what is the difference between the docker:dind and the docker:latest images?

• docker:latest contains everything necessary to connect to a docker daemon, i.e., to run docker build, docker run and such. It also contains the docker daemon but it's not started as its entrypoint.
• docker:dind builds on docker:latest and starts a docker daemon as its entrypoint.

So, their content is almost the same but through their entrypoints one is configured to connect to tcp://docker:2375 as a client while the other is meant to be used for a daemon.

why are both the service and the docker image needed […]?

You don't need both. You can just use either of the two, start dockerd as a first step, and then run your docker build and docker run commands as usual like I did here; apparently this was the original approach in gitlab at some point. But I find it cleaner to just write service: docker:dind instead of having a before_script to setup dockerd. Also you don't have to figure out how to start & install dockerd properly in your base image (if you are not using docker:latest.)

Declaring the service in your .gitlab-ci.yml also lets you swap out the docker-in-docker easily if you know that your runner is mounting its /var/run/docker.sock into your image. You can set the protected variable DOCKER_HOST to unix:///var/run/docker.sock to get faster builds. Others who don't have access to such a runner can still fork your repository and fallback to the dind service without modifying your .gitlab-ci.yml.