Lager Devenvs

Devenvs are lightweight wrappers around Docker designed for embedded developers. A Devenv abstracts away most of the complexity of Docker for the most common use case of day-to-day embedded development: Running a command in a container with the proper working directory, with volumes properly mounted so that the container can see your source code. Note that they are entirely optional - none of the other Lager functionality requires you to use them. Most of the functionality could in theory be replicated with a sufficiently advanced bash script, but Devenvs are significantly easier to use, and we think they're pretty neat.

Benefits of using a Lager Devenv:

  • Quickly run commands inside a container without platform-specific shell scripting

  • Save named commands commands (e.g. lager exec make, lager exec clean, etc) that can be shared with anyone who has access to the repo.

  • Seamlessly integrates with container-based cloud build systems - Lager Devenvs automatically detect if they are running inside a container or CI system, to avoid attempting to launch containers from within a container

How does it work?

Lager Devenvs are defined by a .lager file that lives at the root of your repo. You don't need to manually create or edit this file; the Lager CLI tool will do it for you. Since it lives in your repo, it provides an easy way to share commands with the rest of your team, and ensure that everyone is using the same image for compilation.

Getting started

First, make sure you've installed the Lager-CLI. Then, cd to the top-level directory of your project. Finally, run lager devenv create to create your .lager file. This will ask two questions: the name of the Docker image you want to use, and the directory within the container where your source code should be mounted.

~  lager devenv create
Docker image [lagerdata/devenv-cortexm]:
Source code mount directory in docker container [/app]:

You can use any Docker image; the default is lagerdata/devenv-cortexm, which is a container with tools suitable for compiling for an ARM Cortex M. Lager also curates a set of Dockerfiles that you can use to build your own images.

Launching a terminal

You can launch an interactive terminal session with your container via lager devenv terminal. This can be useful for exploring the filesystem or manually running commands within a container.

Running your first command

To run a command within a container, use lager exec --command '<COMMAND>' (without the brackets, but with the single quotes). For example:

lager exec --command 'ls -a'

~  lager exec --command 'ls -a'
.     .github      .lager          README.md  linker   third_party
..    .gitignore   CMakeLists.txt  app        modules
.git  .gitmodules  LICENSE.md      cmake      test

Saving commands

You can save commands for later use with the --save-as flag. This will give the command a name that can later be passed to lager exec. For example, suppose we have the following: lager exec --save-as build --command 'mkdir -p _build; cd _build ; cmake .. -G Ninja ;cmake --build . --target blue42_test_mpu9250_drv'. That will run the --command argument in a container, and create an alias for it called build.

Running a saved command

Instead of passing --command to lager exec, you can pass a name that was previously defined using the --save-as flag. Using the example above - if you've saved a command with the alias build, you can subsequently invoke it using lager exec build.

Viewing saved commands

You can list the available commands (for use with lager exec) using lager devenv commands:

~  lager devenv commands
cmake-test1: mkdir -p _build; cd _build ; cmake .. -G Ninja; cmake --build . --target blue42_test1
build: mkdir -p _build; cd _build ; cmake .. -G Ninja ;cmake --build . --target blue42_test_mpu9250_drv
cmake-clean: rm -rf _build