Dockerized ROS and Gazebo

Overview

This is a setup that I use for ROS development. It consists of ROS noetic desktop and Gazebo. Checkout original repository for dockerfile of this branch. This dockerfile adds support for GUI apps on machines with nvidia cards.

If you are looking for dockerizing final version of your simulation take a look at exec-only-base branch. It uses more lightweight dockerfile and dockerizes workspace instead of mounting it.

Quick start

It is expected that your catkin_ws is located inside this directory. If you are using nvidia card the following will be sufficient:

• git clone https://github.com/OMRIFIJI/ROS-gazebo-docker.git
• cd ROS-gazebo-docker
• docker build -t 'ros-gazebo' .
• Choose one of 2 approaches (more about it in GUI section):
  1. docker compose up
  2. ./wrapped_docker_run.bash
• Now you can enter container with bash: docker exec -it ros-dev bash

Graphics card

If you don't use nvidia card mounting your device should be sufficient. If you are still having issues try removing gpus --all from wrapped_docker_run or deploy of nvidia card from docker_compose. Be aware that you may have problems with lights in Gazebo if your card is not nvidia. Checkout this issue for more info.

GUI support

Another problem with GUI inside docker is allowing container to communicate with X (or Xwayland) server on your machine. Here I've used 2 approaches with different vulnerabilities:

1. In docker_compose file network_mode is set to "host".
2. In wrapped_docker_run.bash xhost command is used to allow connection to X server.