Pulling a Docker image for local development.

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Pulling a Docker image for local development with Pulumi involves using the `docker` package to define a `RemoteImage` resource. This resource allows you to specify the name of the image you wish to pull from a Docker registry, such as Docker Hub, and have it available on your local machine. This is useful when you want to ensure that your development environment matches the images that you deploy to production or share among your team.

Here's a step-by-step guide to how you'd pull a Docker image for local development using Pulumi:

1. First, you'll define a new Docker image resource using `new docker.RemoteImage`, specifying the name of the image.
2. `RemoteImage` will default to pulling from Docker Hub, but you can also specify a private registry by providing `registry` credentials.
3. After running `pulumi up`, the Docker image specified will be pulled to your local machine.

Now, let's look at a basic Pulumi program that pulls the `nginx` Docker image for local development:

```typescript
import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as docker from "@pulumi/docker";

// Create a Docker image resource from Docker Hub
const myNginxImage = new docker.RemoteImage("myNgixImage", {
    name: "nginx:latest", // Replace with your image and tag
});

export const imageName = myNginxImage.name;
```

This program will pull down the `nginx` image tagged `latest`. The `imageName` is exported, which allows you to see the name of the image after the Pulumi stack has been deployed. The `RemoteImage` resource automatically tracks the state of the image in your Pulumi state file.

To run this Pulumi program:
1. Initialize a new Pulumi project in TypeScript.
2. Install the necessary Pulumi Docker package by running `npm install @pulumi/docker`.
3. Copy the above code into your `index.ts` file in the project.
4. Run `pulumi up` to execute the program and pull the Docker image.

Note that this program assumes you have Docker installed on your local development machine and that you've run `pulumi login` to log in to the Pulumi service or set up the local Pulumi backend. It also assumes you have correctly configured credentials if you're pulling from a private Docker registry.