additional-dev-container-considerations.md

Additional Dev Container Considerations

Using Terminals Outside Visual Studio Code

If you prefer not to use Visual Studio Code integrated terminals, the docker exec command offers an alternative way to provide a terminal. For example, issue the following command in a Linux environment on a machine running a development container (substituting the container ID or container name):

docker exec -it <<container ID or container name>> bash

Ongoing Maintenance

Application changes requiring local development environment updates should be applied to the development container automation wherever possible.

Backup Considerations

Pushing to GitHub or backing up regularly is recommended.

• If a development container uses a bind mount and the source of the bind mount is deleted, any local updates made in the development container will be lost.
• If a repository is cloned into a container volume and the volume is deleted, any local updates made in the development container will be lost.

Network Connectivity Loss

If network connectivity from Docker containers is lost try restarting the Docker daemon (or equivalent) on the machine running the Visual Studio Code development container.

For example, in a Linux environment using systemd:

• Issue the following command for rootful Docker:

  sudo systemctl restart docker

• Issue the following command as a rootless Docker socket owner:

  systemctl --user restart docker

Volume Permissions

If container volume permissions change unexpectedly, a potential reason could be unorderly container shutdown. Restoration of required volume permissions can be achieved using standard operating system commands. For example, in a Linux environment, issue the following command (substituting the required user ID, group ID and volume path):

sudo chown -R <<user ID>>:<<group ID>> <<path/to/volume>>