[SOLVED] Migrate Docker build from GitHub to VS Code

Migrate Docker build from GitHub to VS Code

I'm working on a project that has a build set up in GitHub Actions using Docker. I want to set up the same build on my local machine using VS Code. I created the .devcontainer directory and put the Dockerfile of the Docker image in there. It's reasonably basic, just Ubuntu 20.04 along with some packages:

FROM ubuntu:20.04

#install general package
RUN apt update && apt -y upgrade && apt -y dist-upgrade && apt -y autoremove
RUN apt install -y wget software-properties-common openssl libssl-dev vim curl

#install aarch64 compile
RUN apt install -y gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu g++-aarch64-linux-gnu sudo build-essential

I created a basic devcontainer.json file:

{
    "name": "Build",
    "build": {
        "dockerfile": "Dockerfile",
        "context" : ".."
    }
}

But when I open this using the command "Dev Containers: Open Folder in Container..." it fails with:

[2025-04-07T01:26:03.807Z] [+] Building 0.0s (0/0)                                          docker:default
[2025-04-07T01:26:03.808Z] ERROR: resolve : lstat /tmp/devcontainercli-tom: no such file or directory
[2025-04-07T01:26:03.812Z] Stop (164 ms): Run: docker buildx build --load --build-arg BUILDKIT_INLINE_CACHE=1 -f /tmp/devcontainercli-tom/container-features/0.75.0-1743989163646/Dockerfile-with-features -t vsc-my-project-0e7daada5b87192d14f17d6429b5122695a3e1282fb7f39ca188f42b196e63b1 --target dev_containers_target_stage --build-arg _DEV_CONTAINERS_BASE_IMAGE=dev_container_auto_added_stage_label /home/tom/Documents/GitHub/MyProject

The directory /tmp/devcontainercli-tom exists so where am I going wrong?

Solution

Finally found the problem. Turns out I had Docker installed with Snap and there's a limitation where Snap can't access /tmp: https://github.com/canonical/docker-snap/issues/34#issuecomment-812045834

I had to uninstall Docker from Snap and reinstall using apt-get and now it works: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/