diff --git a/scripts/docker/ubuntu18.04-xvfb.Dockerfile b/scripts/docker/ubuntu18.04-xvfb.Dockerfile
index e1bf4b659d..e91ba85528 100644
--- a/scripts/docker/ubuntu18.04-xvfb.Dockerfile
+++ b/scripts/docker/ubuntu18.04-xvfb.Dockerfile
@@ -11,6 +11,6 @@ RUN echo "deb-src https://deb.nodesource.com/node_12.x bionic main" | tee -a /et
 
 # Install Node.js and vscode dependencies
 RUN apt-get update
-RUN apt-get -y -qq install nodejs libnss3 gnupg libxkbfile1 libsecret-1-0 libgtk-3-0 libxss1 libgbm1 libasound2 xvfb
+RUN apt-get -y -qq install nodejs libnss3 gnupg libxkbfile1 libsecret-1-0 libsecret-1-dev libgtk-3-0 libxss1 libgbm1 libasound2 xvfb build-essential pkg-config
 
 ENTRYPOINT [ "bash" ]
diff --git a/testing/test-vscode.sh b/testing/test-vscode.sh
index 21bfcce7f0..54266b142b 100755
--- a/testing/test-vscode.sh
+++ b/testing/test-vscode.sh
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@ set -x
 set -e
 # just to make sure: we are in the mongosh root dir
 test -x packages && grep -q '"name": "mongosh"' package.json
+# the vscode extension needs npm7 for installing
+npm i -g npm@7
+npm -v
 # we pick a target directory that is not affected by the mongosh node_modules directory
 mongosh_root_dir=$PWD
 test_root_dir=/tmp/mongosh-vscode-test
@@ -11,7 +14,7 @@ rm -rf "$test_root_dir" && mkdir -p "$test_root_dir"
 cd "$test_root_dir"
 git clone --depth=10 https://github.com/mongodb-js/vscode.git
 cd vscode
-npm install
+npm install --force
 rm -rf node_modules/@mongosh
 (cd node_modules && ln -s "$mongosh_root_dir/packages" @mongosh)
 npm test