Visual Studio Code Remote Containers: Azure Ansible
3 minute read
Last year I was working on a project for deploying Azure services using Ansible, and let me tell you something: Back then a feature like Visual Studio Remote Containers would have helped us so much!
Why? Because just installing Visual Studio Code, the Remote Development Extension Pack, and Docker you have a killer combo that makes it possible to create a Development environment in a snap and share it with your source code.
When I learned about this feature I tought I should create a Developer Container for those who need to work with Azure and Ansible so I went hands on and after collaborating with Chuck Lantz the container definition resulted in the following two files:
devcontainer.json
This file configures the remote container with the specified extensions
{
"name": "Azure Ansible",
"dockerFile": "Dockerfile",
"runArgs": [
// Uncomment the next line if you will use a ptrace-based debugger like C++, Go, and Rust.
// "--cap-add=SYS_PTRACE", "--security-opt", "seccomp=unconfined",
"-v", "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"
],
// Uncomment the next line if you want to publish any ports.
// "appPort": [],
// Uncomment the next line if you want to add in default container specific settings.json values
// "settings": { "workbench.colorTheme": "Quiet Light" },
// Uncomment the next line to run commands after the container is created.
// "postCreateCommand": "ansible --version",
"extensions": [
"vscoss.vscode-ansible",
"redhat.vscode-yaml",
"ms-vscode.azurecli"
]
}
Dockerfile
This is the Dockerfile with all the tooling for the Development environment.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
# Licensed under the MIT License. See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2090316 for license information.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Pick any base image, but if you select node, skip installing node. 😊
FROM debian:9
# Avoid warnings by switching to noninteractive
ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
# Configure apt and install packages
RUN apt-get update \
&& apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends apt-utils 2>&1 \
#
# Verify git, required tools installed
&& apt-get install -y \
git \
curl \
procps \
unzip \
apt-transport-https \
ca-certificates \
gnupg-agent \
software-properties-common \
lsb-release 2>&1 \
#
# [Optional] Install Node.js for Azure Cloud Shell support
# Change the "lts/*" in the two lines below to pick a different version
&& curl -so- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash 2>&1 \
&& /bin/bash -c "source $HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh \
&& nvm install lts/* \
&& nvm alias default lts/*" 2>&1 \
#
# [Optional] For local testing instead of cloud shell
# Install Docker CE CLI.
&& curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/$(lsb_release -is | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')/gpg | apt-key add - 2>/dev/null \
&& add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/$(lsb_release -is | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]') $(lsb_release -cs) stable" \
&& apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -y docker-ce-cli \
#
# [Optional] For local testing instead of cloud shell
# Install the Azure CLI
&& echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/azure-cli/ $(lsb_release -cs) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/azure-cli.list \
&& curl -sL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add - 2>/dev/null \
&& apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -y azure-cli \
#
# Install Ansible
&& apt-get install -y libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev python-pip \
&& pip install ansible[azure] \
#
# Clean up
&& apt-get autoremove -y \
&& apt-get clean -y \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
# Switch back to dialog for any ad-hoc use of apt-get
ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=dialog
To learn more about the Azure Ansible Remote Container please check here.
If you want to use Developer Conatianers with WSL 2 start here
Hope it helps!