Overview

code-anywhere is a dockerized visual studio code server that is accessible through a web browser via ngrok. It can be run anywhere docker is available.

Quick Start

You can use a prebuilt image to quickly get a coder-server instance running. However, while this instance will run fine, any files or directories created will not have the correct permissions of the host user. Furthermore, you may not be able to access certain files or use docker commands.

It is recommended to use the proper method under Getting Started below instead of this quick start.

To quickly run a visual studio code instance with a publicly accessible url, run the following command:

docker run -it --rm -e PASSWORD=changeme -v `pwd`:/workspace bitbldr/code-anywhere

Be sure to set PASSWORD=changeme to something private and secure

Getting Started (recommended)

In order to have code-server run with the same permissions as the host user, it is required to build the docker image on the machine you intend to run it as the user you wish to run as.

Clone the repository:

git clone [email protected]:bitbldr/code-anywhere.git

Build the image with correct user permissions:

cd code-anywhere
docker image build \
    --build-arg USER_ID=$(id -u ${USER}) \
    --build-arg GROUP_ID=$(id -g ${USER}) \
    -t code-anywhere:${USER} \
    .

Run code-anywhere:

docker run -it --rm -e PASSWORD=changeme -v `pwd`:/workspace code-anywhere:${USER}

Be sure to set PASSWORD=changeme to something private and secure

This command will output a publicly accesible ngrok url where your code-server can be accessed via web browser (e.g. code-server is now available at: https://fa76f304c31e.ngrok.io/?folder=/workspace)

To exit interactive mode and continue running the container in the background, use Ctrl+p Ctrl+q. When finished, you can kill the container using docker kill [container id].

Additional Options

Docker support

Build the image with correct user and docker permissions:

cd code-anywhere
docker image build \
    --build-arg USER_ID=$(id -u ${USER}) \
    --build-arg GROUP_ID=$(id -g ${USER}) \
    -t code-anywhere:${USER} \
    .

docker run -it --rm -e PASSWORD=changeme -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v `pwd`:/workspace code-anywhere:${USER}

Depending on your host /var/run/docker.sock permissions, you may have to use sudo once in the vscode integrated web terminal to access docker or supply the -u root:root flag.

Map User Home

The simplest way to persist any settings across sessions and utilize your host user ssh keys from code-server is to map your home directory into /home/coder.

docker run -it --rm -e PASSWORD=changeme -v $HOME:/home/coder -v `pwd`:/workspace code-anywhere:${USER}

To enable an ssh key the vscode integrated web terminal, run:

eval `ssh-agent -s`
ssh-add

Run as a different user

USER=someotheruser
docker image build \
    --build-arg USER_ID=$(id -u ${USER}) \
    --build-arg GROUP_ID=$(id -g ${USER}) \
    -t code-anywhere:${USER} \
    .

docker run -it --rm -e PASSWORD=changeme -v `pwd`:/workspace code-anywhere:${USER}

Credits

Thank you to the excellent open source work made available by the code-server team at https://github.com/cdr/code-server and vs-code at https://github.com/microsoft/vscode. Their amazing contributions to open source make this project possible.

I have no affiliation with either of these orgaizations.