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If you have configuration instructions that apply to everyone who uses a given image to create workspaces, you can define them using the /coder/configure file.
You can use the configure script to:
We strongly recommend changing the
USER
tocoder
as the final step of your Dockerfile so that the configure script runs as thecoder
user. This change ensures that Coder stores all installation and configuration information in the persisted/home/coder
folder (the only time this is not the case is if a command is prefaced bysudo
).
Coder will check the image for the presence of a /coder/configure file during the build process; if Coder finds one, it will execute the instructions contained. You copy the configure file into the image when creating the Dockerfile.
The following steps will show you how to create and use a config file.
Using the text editor of your choice, create a file named configure
and make
it executable:
touch configure
chmod +x configure
Next, add the instructions that you want included. For example, the following file shows how you can clone a repo at build time:
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -d "/home/coder/workspace/project" ]
then
ssh-keyscan -t rsa <yourGitProviderEndpoint> >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
git clone git://company.com/project.git /home/coder/workspace/project
else
echo "Project has already been cloned."
fi
Ensure that you change the
<yourGitProviderEndpoint>
placeholder in thessh-keyscan
command (e.g.,github.com
,bitbucket.org
,gitlab.com
).
Note that the instructions provided include if-else
logic on whether the
instructions should be re-run (and when) or if Coder should run the instructions
only once. We strongly recommend including this logic at all times to minimize
overhead.
Any commands run with
sudo
will, by default, not include the environment variables of your user. If you'd like to preserve your existing env variables, pass the-E
flag to yoursudo
invocation.
Once you have a config file, update your image to use it by including the following in your Dockerfile:
COPY [ "configure", "/coder/configure" ]
As an example, take a look at the sample Dockerfile that follows; the final line includes instructions to Coder on copying the settings from the configure file:
FROM ubuntu:latest
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y curl
COPY [ "configure", "/coder/configure" ]
USER coder
To make your image accessible to Coder, build the development image and push it to your container registry.
You can build your image by running the following command in the directory where
your Dockerfile is located (be sure to replace the user/repo:latest
placeholder value with your user, repository and tag names so that the image is
pushed to the appropriate location):
docker build user/repo:latest .
Once you've built the image, push the image to the Docker registry:
docker push user/repo:latest
You can test your setup by performing the following steps:
Coder will run the configure file during the build process. You can verify this by:
/home/coder
folder, and
running cat configure.log
.The following are examples of instructions you can include in your configure file.
Coder's base images include a basic configure script, which you can copy and modify:
# Dockerfile
FROM ...
COPY configure /coder/configure
USER coder
If you're extending a Coder image that has a configure file that you'd like to preserve, the following steps show you how to avoid writing over the original script.
Create the configure script
touch configure
chmod +x configure
Modify the image's Dockerfile to move the original configure script (this results in Coder using the configure script that you created in the previous step while preserving the original script)
# Dockerfile
FROM codercom/enterprise-configure:ubuntu
USER root
RUN mv /coder/configure /coder/configure-first
# Add the new configure script
COPY configure /coder/configure
USER coder
Create your new script; in addition to any instructions that you add, this script will run the configure script that came with the base image
# Configure
# Run the initial configure script
sh /coder/configure-first
print "And some more commands..."
...
The following shows how to run a Coder CLI command in your configure script by demonstrating how you can create a Dev URL:
# configure
# Create a Dev URL (or update if it already exists)
coder urls create $CODER_WORKSPACE_NAME 3000 --name webapp
Create a settings.json
file:
touch settings.json
chmod +x settings.json
Add settings info to your file:
{
"git.enableSmartCommit": true,
"git.confirmSync": false,
"editor.formatOnSave": true
}
Update configure
to use the settings file:
# configure
# Check if there are existing settings
if [ -f "/home/coder/.local/share/code-server/User/settings.json" ]
then
echo "VS Code settings are already present. Remove with and run
/coder/configure to revert to defaults"
else
cp settings.json /home/coder/.local/share/code-server/User/settings.json
# Install extensions
/var/tmp/coder/code-server/bin/code-server --install-extension esbenp.prettier-vscode
fi
You can also modify VS Code settings using dotfiles repos which are cloned and executed as the final workspace build step.
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