Minimal ROS 2 starter

Here’s a minimal starter for ROS 2-based projects development with Docker. The code can be found on my GitHub.

Dockerfile

FROM ros:foxy

# Installing packages
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    build-essential \
    wget \
    git \
    cmake \
    # add more packages here
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# Creating an user and setting up privileges
RUN adduser --disabled-password --gecos '' docker && \
    adduser docker sudo && \
    echo '%sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' >> /etc/sudoers
USER docker

# Creating ROS working directory
WORKDIR /home/docker 
RUN mkdir -p ws/src
WORKDIR /home/docker/ws/src
ENV ROS_WORKSPACE=/home/docker/ws
RUN catkin init

WORKDIR $ROS_WORKSPACE

ENTRYPOINT [ "/ros_entrypoint.sh" ]
CMD ["/bin/bash"]

The image created will contain ready-to-go ROS environment.

scripts/setup.sh

/opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash file has to be executed in the shell for ROS CLI to work. The same process has to be repeated in every terminal we want to use ROS in. It is convenient to put the command in a script. We can also put there additional commands to configure further packages in the project.

#!/bin/bash

source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash
# additional commands

Running the environment

First, we have to build an image with:

docker build -t <image name> .

Then, we can run the container with:

docker run --rm -it \
    -e ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0 \
    -v .:<path/to/the/project> \
    <image name> /bin/bash

• i- runs the container in interactive mode, -t let’s us use the terminal
• -e ROS_DOMAIN_ID=0 sets the ROS domain ID
• -v .:<path/to/the/project> mount our local project files to the container