Remote Development on Docker Containers

Provision Docker containers as Coder workspaces with this example template.

Prerequisites

Infrastructure

The VM you run Coder on must have a running Docker socket and the coder user must be added to the Docker group:

# Add coder user to Docker group
sudo adduser coder docker

# Restart Coder server
sudo systemctl restart coder

# Test Docker
sudo -u coder docker ps

Architecture

This template provisions the following resources:

• Docker image (built by Docker socket and kept locally)
• Docker container pod (ephemeral)
• Docker volume (persistent on /home/coder)

This means, when the workspace restarts, any tools or files outside of the home directory are not persisted. To pre-bake tools into the workspace (e.g. python3), modify the container image. Alternatively, individual developers can personalize their workspaces with dotfiles.

Note This template is designed to be a starting point! Edit the Terraform to extend the template to support your use case.

Editing the image

Edit the Dockerfile and run coder templates push to update workspaces.