Why my act_runner can't use docker on the host?

Actions
1

I run act_runner in docker container

Based on gitea/act_runner:latest image with my host docker socket inside it. Like in this standard docker-run example: act_runner/examples/docker at main - act_runner - Gitea: Git with a cup of tea

And docker works here in the act_runner container:

myhost \~ $ docker exec -it act-runner bash
668d20420b69:/data# apk add docker
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.22/main/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
fetch https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.22/community/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz
(1/13) Installing ca-certificates (20250911-r0)
…
(13/13) Installing docker (28.3.3-r5)
Executing busybox-1.37.0-r18.trigger
Executing ca-certificates-20250911-r0.trigger
OK: 262 MiB in 47 packages
668d20420b69:/data# docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                     COMMAND                  CREATED          STATUS          PORTS     NAMES
668d20420b69   gitea/act_runner:latest   “/sbin/tini – run.sh”   16 minutes ago   Up 16 minutes             act-runner

Then I try to run this workflow:

name: Gitea Actions Demo
run-name: ${{ gitea.actor }} is testing out Gitea Actions 🚀
on: [push]

jobs:
  Explore-Gitea-Actions:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: ls -la /var/run/docker.sock
        run: ls -la /var/run/docker.sock
      - name: show docker info
        run: docker info

And Docker doesn’t work here.

The ls -la /var/run/docker.sock shows that it is a directory not a socket:

screenshot
screenshot954×718 75.5 KB

How to use docker build in workflow?

2

@Youpi , did you find a cause or solution for your Docker rootless: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon ?

3

OK. That is not gitea or act_runner issue. That is docker feature.

b3a0b5526a75:~# docker run --rm -it --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock alpine:latest ash
/ # ls -la /var/run/docker.sock
total 0
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            40 Feb  2 10:05 .
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            22 Feb  2 13:02 ..
4

Great! I successfully start the act_runner binary on host without docker gitea/act_runner:latest image, as the systemd.service with docker.socket file access - Act Runner | Gitea Documentation .