bitbucket pipeline - Do steps run on a docker container even in self.hosted windows runners?

[Giuliano Motter]

Hello all,

I might be missing some basic piece of info. but I have what sounds to me like a really simple question...

Documentation about bitbucket pipelines says very explicitly that: "Each step in your pipeline runs a separate Docker container."

1. Is this the case even for self.hosted windows runners? It looks like to me that my steps are running on a simple powershell instance on my runner, and not inside any docker container.
2. If it's not in fact running inside any docker container currently. Is is possible to do so on a self.hosted windows runner?

[Ben]

Hey Giuliano,

Welcome to the Bitbucket Cloud Community! :) 

You are correct - Windows Runners do not run within a Docker container, the documentation specifying  "Each step in your pipeline runs a separate Docker container." applies to Bitbucket Pipelines itself rather than the Runner component.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to run a self hosted Windows runner within a Docker environment (also known as a Docker-in-Docker Image), this is listed under "Unsupported Features":
https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/set-up-runners-for-windows/

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)