qmcgaw/rustdevcontainer repository overview

⁠Rust Dev Container

Rust development container for Visual Studio Code

⁠Features

• Rust 1.99.1
• Rust Analyzer
• Clippy
• Rustfmt
• cargo-binstall 1.26.0, to install Rust command line tools from pre-compiled binaries rather than compiling them: cargo binstall ripgrep cargo-watch
• Alpine based with Docker tags ghcr.io/qdm12/rustdevcontainer:latest and ghcr.io/qdm12/rustdevcontainer:alpine
  • Compatible with amd64 (1.64GB uncompressed image size)
  • Based on qmcgaw/basedevcontainer:alpine⁠
    • Based on Alpine 3.24
    • Minimal custom terminal and packages
    • See more features⁠
• Debian based with Docker tag ghcr.io/qdm12/rustdevcontainer:debian
  • Compatible with amd64 (1.62GB uncompressed image size) and arm64 (1.5GB uncompressed image size)
  • Based on qmcgaw/basedevcontainer:debian⁠
    • Based on Debian Trixie
    • Minimal custom terminal and packages
    • See more features⁠
• Runs as an unprivileged user (user, uid/gid 1000 by default, configurable), see Non-root user⁠
  • apk (Alpine) and apt-get (Debian) install packages from that user, no sudo involved
• Cross platform
  • Easily bind mount your SSH keys to use with git
  • Manage your host Docker from within the dev container, more details at qmcgaw/basedevcontainer⁠
• Compatible with both the Docker and Podman engines
• Extensible with docker-compose.yml
• Comes with extra binary tools for a few extra MBs: kubectl, kubectx, kubens, stern and helm

Image sizes are the uncompressed ones, as reported by podman image ls or docker image ls. The compressed size transferred on a pull is roughly a third of that.

⁠Requirements

See .devcontainer/README.md#Requirements⁠

⁠Setup for a project

1. Setup your configuration files

   • With style 💯

     docker run -it --rm -v "/yourrepopath:/repository" qmcgaw/devtainr:v0.2.0 -dev rust -path /repository -name projectname
     

     Copy

     If you run on Linux not as root, run the docker run command with --user="$(id -u):$(id -g)".

     Or use the built binary⁠

   • Or manually: download this repository and put the .devcontainer⁠ directory in your project. It holds a docker/ and a podman/ configuration, pick the one matching your container engine.

2. If you have a .vscode/settings.json, eventually move the settings to .devcontainer/*/devcontainer.json in the "settings" section as .vscode/settings.json take precedence over the settings defined in .devcontainer//devcontainer.json*.
3. Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container... and choose your project directory
4. See .devcontainer/README.md#Setup⁠

⁠Non-root user

The image runs using an unprivileged account user, created by the base image⁠.

💁 In case you need root access, see the root user section⁠

The non root user is configurable with container build arguments, defined both in the Dockerfiles and in the devcontainer.json files:

The unprivileged account:

• owns its home, /usr/local/cargo (its CARGO_HOME) and /usr/local/rustup (its RUSTUP_HOME), so it can install and remove packages without sudo or doas
• can write to a directory a package may add or remove a file in (/usr/local/bin, /etc/ssl/certs, /var/log...), which all belong to $GROUP_NAME and are group-writable.
• can only read and execute files installed in the container image and setup by the container engine
• cannot read /root and /etc/shadow

On system package management, note:

• it cannot replace a file the image already has installed, since those keep their root ownership
• for the Debian container, some packages have maintainer scripts that insist on running as root, and will fail to install (i.e. dbus); the fix is to finish the job as root for example docker exec --user root <container-name> sh -c 'apt-get install -y dbus && dpkg --configure -a'

⁠Root user

If you need to run a command as root, exec in the container using for example

docker exec --user root <container-name> command

Root has the same terminal setup as the unprivileged account, given its configuration files are symlinks into /home/user. Note however that by default the zsh history and ssh files are not symlinked or copied from the unprivileged user to root. The shell prints Running as root at startup, so you always know which account a terminal belongs to.

⁠Customization

See .devcontainer/README.md#Customization⁠

When you extend the image in a Dockerfile, the build runs as the unprivileged account: use USER root before instructions that do need root, and USER user to give it back.

⁠docker-compose.yml

You can create a .devcontainer/docker-compose.yml to create the devcontainer and other containers at the same time:

services:
  vscode: # configured in devcontainer.json
    build: .
  postgres: # example of a database container
    image: postgres
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: password

And change the following in your relevant devcontainer.json:

• remove "build": { "dockerfile": "../Dockerfile" },
• add "dockerComposeFile": "../docker-compose.yml",
• add "overrideCommand": true,
• add "service": "vscode",
• add "runServices": ["vscode", "postgres"],

Finally, open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P) and select Dev-Containers: Rebuild Container

⁠License

This repository is under an MIT license⁠ unless indicated otherwise.