This repository is a collection of files/scripts to conveniently build and run ROS 2 packages inside a Docker container and have shared memory transport between ROS 2 nodes run inside the container and on the host enabled.
When running ROS 2 nodes inside a container and on its host, we might want to transmit messages between them using efficient shared memory transport. However, this requires a non-trivial configuration and the issue has been described multiple times:
- Troubles communicating with ROS2 node in docker container
- ROS2 galactic nodes can't communicate through docker container border
- ROS2-foxy nodes can't communicate through docker container border
- Failed to exchange Messages between two docker containers when run on host network option.(--network=host)
- ROS2 topics on Docker detected by host but can't subscribe
- Running discovery process as root breaks existing processes running as normal user when SHM is used
Transmitting images between Docker container and host using shared memory transport requires
- running the container with specific options,
--network=host --ipc=host --pid=host, and - running ROS 2 nodes inside the container by a user with the same ID as the user of the host.
This repository shows the most convenient setup (that I could find so far) to build and run ROS packages inside a Docker container and enable shared memory transport between ROS 2 nodes inside the container and on the host. The setup involves:
build.shandrun.shscripts to build/run the container with the correct optionsros_entrypoint.shthat creates a user inside with matching user/group IDs at startupbuildandrunaliases inside the container to build/run colcon workspace as correct user
On host:
./build.sh #Builds and tags Docker image
./run.sh #Runs Docker image with correct options
Inside container:
build #Alias to build colcon_ws as root user
run #Alias to run ROS package as correct user