[desktop-lite] Only works with vscode

[daniel-meilak]

I have been trying to make use of the devcontainer-cli without using vscode. I am on wsl2 and have used the following .devcontainer/devcontainer.json for setting up a container with desktop-lite:

{
    "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:focal",
    "features": {
        "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/desktop-lite": {
            "password": "vscode",
            "webPort": "6080"
        }
    },
    "forwardPorts": [
        6080
    ],
    "portsAttributes": {
        "6080": {
            "label": "Web VNC"
        }
    }
}

When running the dev container using vscode, I am able to open the ports tab & use the novnc server on localhost:6080, however when I try to run the same dev container using only the cli, the novnc page fails to load.

On wsl, these are the steps I follow:

> devcontainer up --workspace-folder .
[...]
> devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . -- /bin/bash

After which I attempt to open localhost:6080 on a browser in windows, which does not work.

I am assuming that it is possible to get this to work using only the cli. Is there some additional setup which vscode does automatically?

[daniel-meilak]

A colleague of mine pointed me towards this issue, which points out that forwardPorts does not have the desired effect when using only the devcontainer-cli. The workaround is to use appPort instead which works perfectly.

Before closing the issue, could I suggest adding this information to the desktop-lite README.md?

[bamurtaugh]

Thank you for the issue and for sharing the workaround here.

If you have a moment, would you be interested in opening a PR to add the info to the desktop-lite README? I think that's a fantastic idea, and if you cc me in the PR, I'd be happy to review and merge.

[daniel-meilak]

Hey @bamurtaugh, I've created a small PR to add the documentation. Let me know if I should change anything. I've also mentioned you in the PR

[bamurtaugh]

LGTM, thanks so much! Going to close this as completed.