How to run docker-compose inside VS Code devcontainer

Question

I have this multi-container project comprised of 3 NestJS and 1 dotnet5.0 application. Besides the applications, the project depends on a RabbitMQ and an InfluxDB services (running as pure docker images)

The docker-compose file looks like this:

version: '3.8'

services:
  influxdb:
    image: influxdb:2.0
    container_name: influxdb
    ports:
      - '8086:8086'
    expose:
      - '8086'
    volumes:
      - ./data/influxdb2/data:/var/lib/influxdb2
      - ./data/influxdb2/config:/etc/influxdb2

  rabbitmq:
    hostname: 'rabbitmq'
    image: rabbitmq:3-management
    container_name: rabbitmq
    ports:
      - '15672:15672'
      - '5672:5672'

  microservice1:
    image: microservice1
    container_name: microservice1
    depends_on: [rabbitmq, influxdb]
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: ./apps/microservice1/Dockerfile

  microservice2:
    image: microservice2
    container_name: microservice2
    depends_on: [rabbitmq, influxdb]
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: ./apps/microservice2/Dockerfile

  microservice3:
    image: microservice3
    container_name: microservice3
    depends_on: [rabbitmq, influxdb]
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: ./apps/microservice3/Dockerfile

  microservice4:
    image: microservice4
    container_name: microservice4
    depends_on: [rabbitmq, influxdb]
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: ./apps/microservice4/Dockerfile

I want to move the whole dev. environment to the new VS Code devcontainers but I'm not quite getting how to work with dependencies (like rabbitmq and influxdb here).

Ideally, I'd open the repo in a devcontainer with both nodejs and dotnet SDKs to be able to run the microservices during development. But, I don't want to also install influxdb and rabbitmq into the devcontainer as I want to leverage the existing (and convenient) docker images.

Problem is, once I open the repo inside the devcontainer there's no way to interact with docker-compose from the inside (as docker/docker-compose is not available inside the devcontainer).

Is it possible to interact with Docker engine on the host from inside the container? So I can simply have a dev.sh script that can simply up the rabbitmq and influxdb dependencies and then launch whatever microservice I want to run?

Maybe I'm getting it all wrong but I couldn't find a clear explanation on how to mix VS Code devcontainers and docker-compose files (with image-based dependencies).

Answer 1

vscode can only use one service as "the workspace" where the IDE runs. Just like when working locally you are on the IDE and the other services run in other containers.

None of your current services seem "good" for being the IDE workspace, so you would have to add that one. That would be "just like" your host machine, but in the container.

You can use multiple compose files so you can avoid changing your current docker-compose.yml while being able to add your new service.

So, part I:

1. Create a second docker-compose.yml file (maybe: docker-compose.workspace.yml)
2. Add one single service to that file, maybe call it "workspace". vscode Remote part will run there. What image? You may use one vscode's precooked ones.
3. On .devcontainer.json point to both files and define the workspace service:

...
  "dockerComposeFile": [
    "docker-compose.yaml",
    "docker-compose.workspace.yaml"
  ],
  "service": "workspace",
...

Ok. So that gives you the workspace container and everything else on the side. That gets us to the other part of the question:

Is it possible to interact with Docker engine on the host from inside the container? So I can simply have a dev.sh script that can simply up the rabbitmq and influxdb dependencies and then launch whatever microservice I want to run?

First, if you want the docker & docker-compose commands you have to install the packages. Some images have them builtin, others not. You may use your own image, etc.

But that is not enough. You workspace container is ignorant of the host's docker. But it is easy enough to fix. Just add a volume mount:

/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock

On the workspace service. That way vscode will "see" your host's docker and operate with it.

Beware that it is still the host's docker, so you may get into trouble with paths, etc depending on what you do.