How to support multi-architecture docker-compose configuration for devcontainer.json? - vscode-remote

In our engineering team we have people using older macbook pros as well as the new M1 (ARM) chips. We currently have 2 different docker-compose.yaml files that pull in different docker images for our data services based on which architecture the host computer is using. This is not ideal, but currently works fine. I want to make use of devcontainer.json so that our app layer could also live in docker to make setting up a new machine within our eng org very easy. The problem I'm running into is I'm not sure how to tell devcontainer.json which docker-compose.yaml file to use based on which architecture is being used.
My current thought is to just have the developer set an env var on their host system that derives their arch and then utilize that env var within devcontainer.json to point to the correct docker-compose.yaml file, but I'm wondering if there is a better way to achieve my goal.
I noticed that there is an open issue within the vscode-remote-release repo but I think that pertains to the app code image that gets built. Not quite the same situation I'm in, but the solution is probably one part of the solution to my question.

Related

Filename path mapping, when using docker/container/vm

If xdebug provides information about files (e.g. stack traces), we can configure the way it works.
https://xdebug.org/docs/all_settings#filename_format
But on my host machine, the files have a different location, then on my guest machine.
E.g.: /home/me/project/myapp VS /app
Is there any way to configure xdebug so that I can map the files and get the correct host file paths?
There is currently no way to do this with Xdebug.
I have been working on a plan to allow for something like this, but it has not concluded into an actual implementation idea. I would recommend that you file an issue at Xdebug's issue tracker at https://bugs.xdebug.org to register your interest in this feature.

How to (semi-)automatically sync local files with remote devcontainer?

My Goal
I've been using devcontainers in combination with WSL2 for a little while now. But I keep running into issues and besides that I like off-loading resources of my laptop to a server. Moving the containers to a native Linux server would solve my issues.
My ideal situation would be to have a solution that works just like working locally on my Windows laptop (later probably moving to Macbook) but using the facilities of a Linux server (which has systemd and netns) and moving the workload there as well so my laptop doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner.
My Journey
I'm trying to setup remote containers as described here: https://code.visualstudio.com/remote/advancedcontainers/develop-remote-host
Actually the containers are running fine, I'm using the second storage solution what means I add the following to my .devcontainer.json:
"workspaceMount": "source=/home/marvink/code,target=/workspaces,type=bind,consistency=cached"
And my workflow currently looks something like this:
Clone project locally (with .devcontainer already in the project)
Add workspaceMount above to devcontainer.json
Clone project on remote (e.g. to /home/marvink/code/new-project)
Open project locally
Build and reopen in container
Work on the files on the remote
My issue
This works but now I have files on my local drive that never get touched which isn't ideal but not a disaster, the bigger issue is when I want to update the devcontainer. I need to do that locally (in a seperate window), manually need to copy paste that to the remote if I want to commit it to git and off-course I sometimes forget this and try to edit it remotely which is causing a lot of frustration (and sometimes it seems like it does use the remote config, but that might have been a mistake?).
This is why I want to setup rsync both ways to sync changes to files and as a bonus I can edit files locally when I'm offline. In the link it's described how to do it manually but I want it automated so that I can't forget or make mistakes.
From Powershell I'm able to run an rsync command that syncs one-way and I can extend that to sync 2-way:
wsl rsync -rlptzv --progress --exclude=.git '$PWD' 'marvink#s-dev01:~/code/new-project'
This needs to be ran locally but I can't find a way to do that. I'd need to run a task locally for example, but that isn't possibly when working on a remote (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/168).
The other way around doesn't seem like an option to me as I don't want to expose any ports on my laptop and firewalls would get in the way depending on where I am.
My question
My workflow still seems a bit convoluted so I'm open to suggestions on that end but any ideas on how to sync my workspace files?
You don't need a local version of your code (containing the .devcontainer folder) if you're storing that code on the remote server. You should be able to open an ssh target in VScode using the Remote - SSH extension, which is the recommended approach in the link you added. The extension Remote - Containers 'stacks' on top of the SSH extension, so once connected over SSH you then connect to the container using the .devcontainer.json configuration located on your remote server.
If you don't want to use the extension and use a bind mount + specify docker.host in your settings.json file, you can sync code using the approaches in that same article, through SSHFS, docker machine, or rsync.

WebkitGtk application is not loading file URL

I am building a kiosk application using webkitgtk on the raspberry pi 4.
This application will not be connected to the internet and all the html,css, javascript for the UI are all located on the local filesystem.
I am using buildroot to setup the Linux system, starting with the pi 4 defconfig provided in buildroot.
I have enabled all the packages needed to get webkitgtk running.
Also, the kiosk application has been tested on my desktop, using the same software stack and it works
However, when i try to launch the application on the raspberry pi, a blank page pops up. I have played around with the WebKitWebSettings object associated with my WebKitWebView by enabling local file access. It still shows up a blank screen.
Also included in my pi4 application bundle is a simple gtk3+ application. This launches successfully!
I will really appreciate some pointers as to why this is happening as i have sort of reached a dead end
UPDATE
I enabled the MiniBrowser app that comes with the Webkitgtk package.
Entering the local url, The page does not load. It only gives me a message at the top saying "Successfully downloaded".
It seems to be treating my input as a download
UPDATE 2
After some more experimenting, i was finally able to get webkitgtk working on the pi 4.
The problem seems to originate from using the webkit_web_view_load_uri() api.
It does not seem to recognize my html document as a web page.
I got around it using the webkit_web_view_load_html() call. This included some hacks by first reading in the contents of the html doc into a character buffer, and passing it to webkit_web_view_load_html().
You also have to provide a base path to this function call to be able to resolve all the urls (scripts, css, images etc) in your html document.
Another problem i haven't been able to work around is, SVG images are not loading in webkitgtk. I have used jpg formats and they work. I suspect this my be due to a configuration switch in building webkigtk
It's hard for me to figure out what might be happening without having access to your environment and settings. My gut feeling is that pages are showing blank because perhaps some shared libraries are missing. You can check that with:
$ ldd WebKitBuild/GTK/Release/bin/MiniBrowser
I am using buildroot to setup the Linux system, starting with the pi 4 defconfig provided in buildroot.
There's a buildroot repository for building WPE for RPi. WPE (WebPlatform for Embeded) is like WebKitGTK but doesn't depend on GTK toolkit. Another important difference is that WPE runs natively on Wayland.
If you're interested in having a webapp embedded in a browser running in a device with limited capabilities, WPE is a better choice than WebKitGTK. The buildroot repo for building WPE for RPi is here:
https://github.com/WebPlatformForEmbedded/buildroot
There's is also this very interesting step-by-step guide on how to build WPE for RPi3:
https://samdecrock.medium.com/building-wpe-webkit-for-raspberry-pi-3-cdbd7b5cb362
I'm not sure whether the buildroot recipe would work for RPi4. It seems to work for all previous versions, so you might be stepping in new land if you try to build WPE on RPi4.
If you have an RPi3 available I'd try to build WPE for RPi3 first, and make sure that works. Then try for RPi4.

Work on a remote project with Eclipse via SSH

I have the following boxes:
a) A Windows box with Eclipse CDT,
b) A Linux box, accessible for me only via SSH.
Both the compiler and the hardware required to build and run my project is only on machine B.
I'd like to work "transparently" from a Windows box on that project using Eclipse CDT and be able to build, run and debug the project remotely from within the IDE.
How do I set up that:
The building will work? Any simpler solutions than writing a local makefile which would rsync the project and then call a remote makefile to initiate the actual build? Does Eclipse managed build have a feature for that?
The debugging will work?
Preferably - the Eclipse CDT code indexing will work? Do I have to copy all required header files from machine B to machine A and add them to include path manually?
Try the Remote System Explorer (RSE). It's a set of plug-ins to do exactly what you want.
RSE may already be included in your current Eclipse installation. To check in Eclipse Indigo go to Window > Open Perspective > Other... and choose Remote System Explorer from the Open Perspective dialog to open the RSE perspective.
To create an SSH remote project from the RSE perspective in Eclipse:
Define a new connection and choose SSH Only from the Select Remote System Type screen in the New Connection dialog.
Enter the connection information then choose Finish.
Connect to the new host. (Assumes SSH keys are already setup.)
Once connected, drill down into the host's Sftp Files, choose a folder and select Create Remote Project from the item's context menu. (Wait as the remote project is created.)
If done correctly, there should now be a new remote project accessible from the Project Explorer and other perspectives within eclipse. With the SSH connection set-up correctly passwords can be made an optional part of the normal SSH authentication process. A remote project with Eclipse via SSH is now created.
The very simplest way would be to run Eclipse CDT on the Linux Box and use either X11-Forwarding or remote desktop software such as VNC.
This, of course, is only possible when you Eclipse is present on the Linux box and your network connection to the box is sufficiently fast.
The advantage is that, due to everything being local, you won't have synchronization issues, and you don't get any awkward cross-platform issues.
If you have no eclipse on the box, you could thinking of sharing your linux working directory via SMB (or SSHFS) and access it from your windows machine, but that would require quite some setup.
Both would be better than having two copies, especially when it's cross-platform.
I'm in the same spot myself (or was), FWIW I ended up checking out to a samba share on the Linux host and editing that share locally on the Windows machine with notepad++, then I compiled on the Linux box via PuTTY. (We weren't allowed to update the ten y/o versions of the editors on the Linux host and it didn't have Java, so I gave up on X11 forwarding)
Now... I run modern Linux in a VM on my Windows host, add all the tools I want (e.g. CDT) to the VM and then I checkout and build in a chroot jail that closely resembles the RTE.
It's a clunky solution but I thought I'd throw it in to the mix.
My solution is similar to the SAMBA one except using sshfs. Mount my remote server with sshfs, open my makefile project on the remote machine. Go from there.
It seems I can run a GUI frontend to mercurial this way as well.
Building my remote code is as simple as: ssh address remote_make_command
I am looking for a decent way to debug though. Possibly via gdbserver?
I tried ssh -X but it was unbearably slow.
I also tried RSE, but it didn't even support building the project with a Makefile (I'm being told that this has changed since I posted my answer, but I haven't tried that out)
I read that NX is faster than X11 forwarding, but I couldn't get it to work.
Finally, I found out that my server supports X2Go (the link has install instructions if yours does not). Now I only had to:
download and unpack Eclipse on the server,
install X2Go on my local machine (sudo apt-get install x2goclient on Ubuntu),
configure the connection (host, auto-login with ssh key, choose to run Eclipse).
Everything is just as if I was working on a local machine, including building, debugging, and code indexing. And there are no noticeable lags.
I had the same problem 2 years ago and I solved it in the following way:
1) I build my projects with makefiles, not managed by eclipse
2) I use a SAMBA connection to edit the files inside Eclipse
3) Building the project:
Eclipse calles a "local" make with a makefile which opens a SSH connection
to the Linux Host. On the SSH command line you can give parameters which
are executed on the Linux host. I use for that parameter a makeit.sh shell script
which call the "real" make on the linux host.
The different targets for building you can give also by parameters from
the local makefile --> makeit.sh --> makefile on linux host.
The way I solved that one was:
For windows:
Export the 'workspace' directory from the Linux machine using samba.
Mount it locally in windows.
Run Eclipse, using the mounted 'workspace' directory as the eclipse workspace.
Import the project you want and work on it.
For Linux:
Mount the 'workspace' directory using sshfs
Run Eclipse.
Run Eclipse, using the mounted 'workspace' directory as the eclipse workspace.
Import the project you want and work on it.
In both cases you can either build and run through Eclipse, or build on the remote machine via ssh.
For this case you can use ptp eclipse https://eclipse.org/ptp/ for source browsing and building.
You can use this pluging to debug your application
http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/direct-remote-c-debugging
How to edit in Eclipse locally, but use a git-based script I wrote (sync_git_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2.sh) to synchronize and build remotely
The script I wrote to do this is sync_git_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2.sh.
Readme: README_git-sync_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2.md
Update: see also this alternative/competitor: GitSync:
How to use Sublime over SSH
https://github.com/jachin/GitSync
This answer currently only applies to using two Linux computers [or maybe works on Mac too?--untested on Mac] (syncing from one to the other) because I wrote this synchronization script in bash. It is simply a wrapper around git, however, so feel free to take it and convert it into a cross-platform Python solution or something if you wish
This doesn't directly answer the OP's question, but it is so close I guarantee it will answer many other peoples' question who land on this page (mine included, actually, as I came here first before writing my own solution), so I'm posting it here anyway.
I want to:
develop code using a powerful IDE like Eclipse on a light-weight Linux computer, then
build that code via ssh on a different, more powerful Linux computer (from the command-line, NOT from inside Eclipse)
Let's call the first computer where I write the code "PC1" (Personal Computer 1), and the 2nd computer where I build the code "PC2". I need a tool to easily synchronize from PC1 to PC2. I tried rsync, but it was insanely slow for large repos and took tons of bandwidth and data.
So, how do I do it? What workflow should I use? If you have this question too, here's the workflow that I decided upon. I wrote a bash script to automate the process by using git to automatically push changes from PC1 to PC2 via a remote repository, such as github. So far it works very well and I'm very pleased with it. It is far far far faster than rsync, more trustworthy in my opinion because each PC maintains a functional git repo, and uses far less bandwidth to do the whole sync, so it's easily doable over a cell phone hot spot without using tons of your data.
Setup:
Install the script on PC1 (this solution assumes ~/bin is in your $PATH):
git clone https://github.com/ElectricRCAircraftGuy/eRCaGuy_dotfiles.git
cd eRCaGuy_dotfiles/useful_scripts
mkdir -p ~/bin
ln -s "${PWD}/sync_git_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2.sh" ~/bin/sync_git_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2
cd ..
cp -i .sync_git_repo ~/.sync_git_repo
Now edit the "~/.sync_git_repo" file you just copied above, and update its parameters to fit your case. Here are the parameters it contains:
# The git repo root directory on PC2 where you are syncing your files TO; this dir must *already exist*
# and you must have *already `git clone`d* a copy of your git repo into it!
# - Do NOT use variables such as `$HOME`. Be explicit instead. This is because the variable expansion will
# happen on the local machine when what we need is the variable expansion from the remote machine. Being
# explicit instead just avoids this problem.
PC2_GIT_REPO_TARGET_DIR="/home/gabriel/dev/eRCaGuy_dotfiles" # explicitly type this out; don't use variables
PC2_SSH_USERNAME="my_username" # explicitly type this out; don't use variables
PC2_SSH_HOST="my_hostname" # explicitly type this out; don't use variables
Git clone your repo you want to sync on both PC1 and PC2.
Ensure your ssh keys are all set up to be able to push and pull to the remote repo from both PC1 and PC2. Here's some helpful links:
https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh
https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent
Ensure your ssh keys are all set up to ssh from PC1 to PC2.
Now cd into any directory within the git repo on PC1, and run:
sync_git_repo_from_pc1_to_pc2
That's it! About 30 seconds later everything will be magically synced from PC1 to PC2, and it will be printing output the whole time to tell you what it's doing and where it's doing it on your disk and on which computer. It's safe too, because it doesn't overwrite or delete anything that is uncommitted. It backs it up first instead! Read more below for how that works.
Here's the process this script uses (ie: what it's actually doing)
From PC1: It checks to see if any uncommitted changes are on PC1. If so, it commits them to a temporary commit on the current branch. It then force pushes them to a remote SYNC branch. Then it uncommits its temporary commit it just did on the local branch, then it puts the local git repo back to exactly how it was by staging any files that were previously staged at the time you called the script. Next, it rsyncs a copy of the script over to PC2, and does an ssh call to tell PC2 to run the script with a special option to just do PC2 stuff.
Here's what PC2 does: it cds into the repo, and checks to see if any local uncommitted changes exist. If so, it creates a new backup branch forked off of the current branch (sample name: my_branch_SYNC_BAK_20200220-0028hrs-15sec <-- notice that's YYYYMMDD-HHMMhrs--SSsec), and commits any uncommitted changes to that branch with a commit message such as DO BACKUP OF ALL UNCOMMITTED CHANGES ON PC2 (TARGET PC/BUILD MACHINE). Now, it checks out the SYNC branch, pulling it from the remote repository if it is not already on the local machine. Then, it fetches the latest changes on the remote repository, and does a hard reset to force the local SYNC repository to match the remote SYNC repository. You might call this a "hard pull". It is safe, however, because we already backed up any uncommitted changes we had locally on PC2, so nothing is lost!
That's it! You now have produced a perfect copy from PC1 to PC2 without even having to ensure clean working directories, as the script handled all of the automatic committing and stuff for you! It is fast and works very well on huge repositories. Now you have an easy mechanism to use any IDE of your choice on one machine while building or testing on another machine, easily, over a wifi hot spot from your cell phone if needed, even if the repository is dozens of gigabytes and you are time and resource-constrained.
Resources:
The whole project: https://github.com/ElectricRCAircraftGuy/eRCaGuy_dotfiles
See tons more links and references in the source code itself within this project.
How to do a "hard pull", as I call it: How do I force "git pull" to overwrite local files?
Related:
git repository sync between computers, when moving around?

Database query representation impersonating file on Windows share?

Is there any way to have something that looks just like a file on a Windows file share, but is really a resource served up over HTTP?
For context, I'm working with an old app that can only deal with files on a Windows file share, I want to create a simple HTTP-based service to serve the content of the files dynamically to pick up real time changes to the underlying data on request.
WebDAV (basically) takes an existing directory, and shares it over HTTP - which sounds like the opposite of what you want.
You need something that speaks SMB/CIFS on one end, and your own code on the other. The easiest way to do that is with a userspace file system.
To that end, here's a couple of links:
WinFUSE, which is kind of a barebones CIFS/SMB server that can host your own filesystem. I've done a couple of small samples with it - and the docs are terrible, but it more or less worked.
Dokan, a userspace file driver with .NET bindings. I haven't used this one, but it looks promising. It has both .NET and Ruby bindings, so you should be able to get a POC up pretty quickly.
Callback File System - yet another userspace file system. Again, I have no experience with this one.
A Linux box with SAMBA and FUSE that shares the drive out to the Windows box.
This won't answer your question in any meaningful way, but maybe it will get you pointed in the right direction. Look into serving the "file(s)" via WebDAV--SharePoint uses this and its files can be accessed exactly as you want, as a file share where the transport mechanism is HTTP. Unfortunately I can't give any more detailed info, as I've only worked on the client end of WebDAV and not the server side of things.
I think serving up files from WebDAV might be what you're looking for.

Resources