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Dev Container CLI Examples

This folder contains a set of basic examples that use the devcontainer CLI for different use cases. It includes example scripts to:

  1. Use three different tools from a development container
  2. Use a dev container as your CI build environment (even if your app is not deployed as a container)
  3. Build a container image from a devcontainer.json file that includes dev container features

Each should run on macOS or Linux. For Windows, you can use these scripts from WSL2.

Pre-requisites

  1. Install Node.js 16 (e.g., using nvm)
  2. Install node-gyp pre-requisites:
    • Linux/WSL2: Use your distro's package manager. E.g. on Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python3-minimal gcc g++ make
    • macOS: Install the XCode Command Line Tools (more info)
  3. Make sure you have an OpenSSH compliant ssh command available and in your path if you plan to use the Vim via SSH example (it should already be there on macOS, and in Linux/WSL, you can install openssh-client using your distro's package manager if its missing)
  4. Install the latest dev container CLI: npm install -g @devcontainers/cli

Using the examples

All examples use the contents of the workspace folder for their configuration, which is where you can make modifications if you'd like. The example scripts are then in different sub-folders.

Tool examples

You can use these examples by opening a terminal and typing one of the following:

  • tool-vscode-server/start.sh - VS Code Server (official)
  • tool-openvscode-server/start.sh - openvscode-server
  • tool-vim-via-ssh/start.sh - Vim via an SSH connection. SSH is used primarily to demonstrate how this could be achieved from other SSH supporting client tools.

When switching between examples, pass true in as an argument to get the container recreated to avoid port conflicts. e.g., ./start.sh true

In the first two examples, you'll be instructed to go to http://localhost:8000 in a browser.

This also adds a desktop to the container that can be accessed from a web browser at http://localhost:6080 and you can connect using the password vscode.

How the tool examples work

These examples demonstrate the use of the dev container CLI to:

  1. Simplify setup using the "dev container features" concept. For example, SSH support is added just using a feature reference. See workspace/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json for more information.

  2. How the dev container CLI can be used to inject tools without building them into the base image:

    1. Use devcontainer up to spin up the container and mount a server and workspace folder into the container.
    2. Use devcontainer exec to run a script from this mounted folder to set up the appropriate server (and apply tool specific settings/customizations).
    3. In the vim example, a temporary SSH key is set up and configured, and then SSH is used from the command line to connect to the container once it is up and running. See tool-vim-via-ssh/start.sh for details.

Currently the appPort property is used in devcontainer.json instead of forwardPorts due to a gap in the current dev container CLI (see here).

CI build environment example

This example illustrates how you can use the dev container CLI to build your application in any CI system. (Note there is also a GitHub Action and Azure DevOps task if you are using those automation systems, but this example will focus on direct use of the CLI.)

You can use the example by opening a terminal and typing the following:

ci-app-build-script/build-app.sh

After the build completes, you can find the built application in the workspace/dist folder.

The initial build can take a bit since it is building the dev container image, which is an example of where pre-building an image helps.

How the CI example works

This example demonstrates the use of the dev container CLI to:

  1. Simplify setup using the "dev container features" concept. For example, SSH support is added just using a feature reference. See workspace/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json for more information.

  2. Execute an application build script inside a dev container as follows:

    1. Use devcontainer up to spin up the container and mount the the workspace folder into the container.
    2. Use devcontainer exec to run a build script from the mounted folder inside the development container.
    3. Delete the container when the build is finished.

All environment variables are automatically available from exec, including those that are are set in the non-root user's .bashrc file. The dev container CLI also automatically adjusts to UID/GID differences for the user inside the container on Linux to ensure the workspace folder is writable.

Building an image from devcontainer.json

You can use the example by opening a terminal and typing the following:

image-build/build-image.sh

The resulting image name defaults to devcontainer-cli-test-image, but you can change it with the first argument, and configure it to push to a registry by setting the second argument to true. The third argument allows you to build for multiple architectures.

image-build/build-image.sh ghcr.io/my-org/my-image-name-here true "linux/amd64 linux/arm64"

Ultimately, this script just calls the devcontainer build command to do all the work. Once built, you can refer to the specified image name directly in a devcontainer.json file using the image property.