docker_ros

Installation

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install python-yaml

Building the ROS Docker images

cd containers
make

Running ROS commands

This assumes that you already have a ROS master running container somewhere. For the moment, commands which publish from within the container won't work (see "Publishing" below).

To run rostopic list in a docker container:

docker run -e ROS_MASTER_URI=<master URI> hydro_precise rostopic list

The -e option passes and environment variable into the container. Replace <master URI> with the ROS master URI you want to connect to, and replace rostopic list with the ROS command that you want to run.

Running a roscore

You can also run a roscore inside of a container:

docker run -d -p 11311:11311 hydro_precise roscore

The -d tells docker to detach and run the command in the background. To kill it you'll need to use docker ps to find the container ID, and then docker kill <container_id>. The -p 11311:11311 tells docker to forward port 11311 inside the container to port 11311 on the host machine.

Publishing

For the moment, ROS nodes inside of a container cannot publish to nodes which are outside the container. This is because tcpros binds to random ports, and so we don't know ahead of time which ports to forward from the container to the host.

To run rostopic pub in a docker container:

docker run -i -t -e ROS_MASTER_URI=<master URI> hydro_precise rostopic pub foo std_msgs/String hi

This has to be run interactively, since it doesn't terminate on its own.