Standardize the Terkin-Sandbox using Docker

[Andreas]

Introduction

Coming from Trouble with MicroPython Sandbox setup on Windows, we are looking into how to shift the Unix-based toolchain into a Docker container. The main obstacle here is how to gain access to the UART port the device is connected to.

TLDR;

Currently, this idea will only work on Docker for Linux.

Docker for Windows and macOS don’t provide capabilities for privileged access of UART devices on the host machine within containers.

State of the onion

Others are looking at similar things (2018):

@Nick Stathas

We want to standardize our embedded flashing toolchain. All we need to be able to do is map Windows COM ports to /dev/ttyUSBxx devices inside the Docker container. Our Dockerfile works on Linux.

– https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/1018#issuecomment-407543588

Resources

• Docker - a way to give access to a host USB or serial device? - Stack Overflow
• https://forums.docker.com/t/how-to-expose-host-serial-port-to-container-correctly/81588
• Serial port unavailable under Windows even with --privileged flag · Issue #1018 · docker/for-win · GitHub
• Exposing a tty serial device requires privileged and doesn't work · Issue #900 · docker/for-mac · GitHub

[Andreas]

This is an interesting approach but will require some efforts for appropriate integration.

williamfzc/usb2container