diff --git a/Dockerfile.test b/Dockerfile.test
index e71d1493..82487d4c 100644
--- a/Dockerfile.test
+++ b/Dockerfile.test
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 FROM registry.fedoraproject.org/fedora:29
-
 RUN dnf -y install \
   anaconda-tui \
   libgit2-glib \
@@ -22,15 +21,8 @@ RUN dnf -y install \
   beakerlib \
   sudo \
   tito \
+  rsync \
   which
-
 RUN useradd weldr
-
-RUN mkdir /lorax
-COPY . /lorax
-# remove byte-compiled files to avoid issues between Python 2/3
-# this can happen when you switch between rhel7 and master branches
-RUN find /lorax -name "*.pyc" -exec rm -f {} \;
-
+VOLUME /lorax
 WORKDIR /lorax
-RUN make check test
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 8fba6fb0..9002fe0b 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2,12 +2,14 @@ PYTHON ?= /usr/bin/python3
 DESTDIR ?= /
 PREFIX ?= /usr
 mandir ?= $(PREFIX)/share/man
+DOCKER ?= docker
 
 PKGNAME = lorax
 VERSION = $(shell awk '/Version:/ { print $$2 }' $(PKGNAME).spec)
 RELEASE = $(shell awk '/Release:/ { print $$2 }' $(PKGNAME).spec | sed -e 's|%.*$$||g')
 TAG = lorax-$(VERSION)-$(RELEASE)
 
+IMAGE_RELEASE = $(shell awk -F: '/FROM/ { print $$2}' Dockerfile.test)
 
 default: all
 
@@ -74,11 +76,16 @@ local:
 	@rm -rf /var/tmp/$(PKGNAME)-$(VERSION)
 	@echo "The archive is in $(PKGNAME)-$(VERSION).tar.gz"
 
+test-in-copy:
+	rsync -aP --exclude=.git /lorax/ /lorax-test/
+	make -C /lorax-test/ check test
+
 test-in-docker:
-	sudo docker build -t welder/lorax:latest -f Dockerfile.test .
+	sudo $(DOCKER) build -t welder/lorax-tests:$(IMAGE_RELEASE) -f Dockerfile.test .
+	sudo $(DOCKER) run --rm -it -v `pwd`:/lorax:ro --security-opt label=disable welder/lorax-tests:$(IMAGE_RELEASE) make test-in-copy
 
 docs-in-docker:
-	sudo docker run -it --rm -v `pwd`/docs/html/:/lorax/docs/html/ --security-opt label=disable welder/lorax-composer:latest make docs
+	sudo $(DOCKER) run -it --rm -v `pwd`/docs/html/:/lorax/docs/html/ --security-opt label=disable welder/lorax-tests:$(IMAGE_RELEASE) make docs
 
 ci: check test