Docker

1. Introduction

If you’re not familiar with Docker, in short, it lets you create containers with predefined images. Containers are something similar to a virtual machine. An image is just the contents of the hard drive of that virtual machine.

It is very easy to share folders between the docker container and the host. That way you can share your code with the container, build your code from the container, and see the results in the host (so that you can test the result on an emulator or copy it to a flashcart!).

The images are available here: https://hub.docker.com/r/skylyrac/blocksds

2. Setup

First, install Docker: https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/ You may need to reboot after the installation.

Then, pick your image:

blocksds-dev: For developers that want to improve BlocksDS.
blocksds-slim: For developers that just want to focus on NDS development.

blocksds-slim is smaller, so it is the recommended image.

Both images have all the pre-built SDK, and you don’t need to setup any environment variable or anything.

Slim image

Run the following command to get the image:

docker image pull skylyrac/blocksds:slim-latest

First, clone this repository to get the templates:

git clone https://github.com/blocksds/sdk

Write down the path to the templates. Open a shell inside the container and share the folder with the templates:

docker run --rm -v /path/to/your/code:/work -it --entrypoint bash \
    skylyrac/blocksds:slim-latest

The part of the command that shares a folder is -v /path/to/your/code:/work. This example will share the path /path/to/your/code from the host and show it in /work inside the container.

To update the image, simply run the previous docker image pull command again.

Development image

Run the following command to get the image:

docker image pull skylyrac/blocksds:dev-latest

To open a shell inside it, run:

docker run --rm -v /path/to/your/code:/work -it --entrypoint bash \
    skylyrac/blocksds:dev-latest

The full git repository of BlocksDS is in /opt/blocksds/sdk/.

3. Uninstall the images

If you have installed Docker just for this, you can run the following command to remove all docker images available in your PC:

docker system prune -a

4. Build images locally

From the docker folder of this repository run one of the two following commands, depending on the image you want to build:

Development image:

docker build --target blocksds-dev --tag blocksds:dev .

Slim image:

docker build --target blocksds-slim --tag blocksds:dev .