kevinconti / node-dev-container

A small POC for docker containers inside a devcontainer

Setup Instructions

Step 1: Launching the dev container

The dev container creates a developer environment that automatically includes the necessary software and dependencies to run the Node server.

It also includes some nicities - A nice theme, a standardized formatting policy (so all developers will have code formatted the same way, preventing most formatting issues), and some other odds-and-ends (colorized brackets FTW!).

There is some 1-time setup, but afterwards you can skip straight to Step 5.

1. Install Docker (link)

   • You may need to enable virtualization on Windows. Click this link for instructions if you receive this error.

   • Additionally, for Windows users, if you haven't already installed WSL 2, you'll need to run this command in a Powershell window:

     wsl --install -d Ubuntu

     More on WSL here

2. Open project in VS Code

3. Install extensions.

   • Docker by Microsoft
   • Remote - Containers by Microsoft

4. Control/Cmd+Shift+P (Command Pallete) -> Reload Window

5. Click bottom left -> Open in Container

Step 2: Running the node application

1. Run commands (Note: Make sure you are in the root directory!):

   1. docker build -t node-dev-container .
   2. docker run -it --rm -p 4000:3000 node-dev-container
   3. npm run start (once in container)

2. Test that the server and port forwarding are working by navigating to http://localhost:4000. You should see "success": true

3. To kill the container, open a new terminal and run the command docker container list. Take note of the container ID for "node-dev-container" and then run docker kill <container id>

Troubleshooting

1. Issue: Receiving "Permission Denied" when running Docker commands inside the dev container.

   Solution: Rebuild container from command pallette (Control/Command+Shift+P)

2. "Hardware assisted virtualization and data execution protection must be enabled in the BIOS".

   Solution: Follow instructions in this link to allow virtualization