Develop and test addons in a --devmode enabled container

Developing and testing addons using the Anbox Management Service (AMS) may be time-consuming. Instead, a container with --devmode enabled can provide a safe environment to develop and test addons and their hooks without having to upload the addon to the AMS.

This guide explains how to use a container in development mode to develop and test an addon using Anbox runtime. See development mode to learn more about development mode enabled containers.

Launch a container in development mode

Start a raw container with --devmode enabled:

amc launch --devmode --raw

The command prints out the ID of the container. Note down the container ID for next steps.

Use the amc shell <container_id> command to open a shell inside the container. container_id is the container ID from the previous step.

Alternatively, you can use amc exec <container_id> <command_options> to directly execute commands inside the container.

Create an addon within the container

Use the container as a remote environment to develop your addon. To make your addon source available within the container, either copy the addon manifest and hooks using the lxc file push command or clone a git repository using SSH.

You can test your addon hooks by running it inside the container shell. For example, ADDON_DIR=$PWD ./hooks/install can help test if the install hook of the addon works. See environment variables for a list of available variables.

To troubleshoot issues within the container, try either of the following options:

• Run amc logs <container-id> on the host to see the Anbox runtime logs.
• Run journalctl --no-pager within the container to view container logs.
• Restart the container using amc stop <container_id> and then amc start <container_id>.

Example: Launch an SSH-enabled container for remote development

# Launch and obtain the container id
id="$(amc launch --devmode -s ssh --raw)"
# Install the ssh-import-id package
amc exec $id -- apt install -y ssh-import-id
# Import SSH keys from GitHub; Use lp:<username> for Launchpad
amc exec $id -- ssh-import-id gh:<username>
# Get the container's public IP address
# Run `sudo apt install jq` if `jq` is not already installed
container_address="$(amc show $id --format=json | jq -r '.network.public_address')"
# Get the SSH port
node_port="$(amc show $id --format=json | jq -r '.network.services[0].node_port')"
# Connect to the container using SSH
ssh -p "$node_port" root@"$container_address"

Once you are logged in to the container, you can remotely develop and test your addon within the container. For example, see how to set up VS Code for remote development using SSH.

Last updated 2 months ago.