Editable ROS Docker Development

Prerequisites

You should firstly install Docker Engine on your Ubuntu. Then manage docker as a non-root user, to enable docker instead of sudo docker.

• NOTE: Do not install Docker Desktop. It is different from the Docker Engine and not so friendly to docker development.

How to use ( two methods )

This is the cleaned up version. All Options should be defined in config file env.sh and enterpoint.sh as Environment Variables or by using export <VAR>=....

Running Options

Env override options:

• ROS_DISTRO: choose ROS distribution.

export ROS_DISTRO=humble   # options: humble(default), noetic

• VOLUME_DIR: volume a folder into container dir /workspace.

export VOLUME_DIR=<path>   # options: $(pwd)

• CUDA: Follow these links to use Nvidia Cuda in container and solve potential problems.
  • NVIDIA Container Toolkit
  • Error: Failed to initialize NVML: Unknown Error

export CUDA=1              # To cancel CUDA: unset CUDA

Method 1: Enter Container with Scripts

In the repository folder, run

./enterpoint.sh

Here is env variables in the env.sh. Define those in the env.sh or your env variable will be override by the env.sh.

• GIT_LABEL
• IMAGE_TAG
• CONTAINER_NAME
• HOME_PATH
• WORKSPACE_PATH

Method 2: Enter Container without CLI

Build Image:

docker build --tag <image tag> --file <dockerfile> --no-cache .     # --no-cache means install dependencies with no cache

Run Container:

docker run --rm -it --name=<CONTAINER_NAME> --network=<net> --privileged --volume="<host path>:<path>" --device=="<host path>:<path>" --env="<var=host var>"

Execute cmd:

docker build -it <CONTAINER_NAME> <CMD/SHELL>

How To Rebuild Image:

source env.sh
docker build --tag "${IMAGE_TAG}" --file "ros-${ROS_DISTRO}.Dockerfile" --no-cache .

In ROS Humble

Source environment. These lines can be added to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for convenience. The following commands have been added to humble dockerfile and will be added to .bashrc.

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
source /usr/share/colcon_argcomplete/hook/colcon-argcomplete.bash

After compiling, don't forget to source setup file

colcon build --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash