Mount path based on env var

[devhl-labs]

I am trying to mount ~/.azure into my devcontainer. The issue is that this directory is a symlink to my Windows path. I can get the mount to work if I mount both paths, the problem is that I don't want to commit my Windows path into git because it wont be the same for others. For others, it may not even be a symlink. Is it possible to mount my symlink using an environment variable if the user has it set?

[samruddhikhandale]

Yes, you can use an environment variable in your devcontainer.json to mount the symlink. Define the variable in an .env file and reference it in the mounts section.

eg.

{
    "name": "My Dev Container",
    "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/vscode/devcontainers/base:0.202.6",
    "mounts": [
        "source=${AZURE_PATH},target=/root/.azure,type=bind,consistency=cached"
    ],
    "remoteEnv": {
        "AZURE_PATH": "${localEnv:AZURE_PATH}"
    }
}

[devhl-labs]

This gives me an error Error response from daemon: ${AZURE_PATH} is not an absolute path.

    "mounts": [
        "type=bind,source=${localEnv:HOME}/.bash_history,target=${localEnv:HOME}/.bash_history",
        "type=bind,source=${localEnv:HOME}/.ssh,target=${localEnv:HOME}/.ssh,readonly",
        "type=bind,source=${localEnv:HOME}/.azure,target=${localEnv:HOME}/.azure",
        "source=${AZURE_PATH},target=/root/.azure,type=bind,consistency=cached"
    ],
    "runArgs": [
        "--env-file",
        ".devcontainer/devcontainer.env"
    ],
    "remoteEnv": {
        "AZURE_PATH": "${localEnv:AZURE_PATH}"
    }

[devhl-labs]

Mounts and runArgs do not resolve the environment variables, so it seems there is no way to have a dynamic mount. There is a similar issue here microsoft/vscode-remote-release#3972 @samruddhikhandale Is there anything else I can try?

I even get the same error when I simplify it like this

    "mounts": [
        "type=bind,source=${AZURE_PATH},target=/mnt/c/Users/devhl/.azure"
    ],
    "remoteEnv": {
        "AZURE_PATH": "/mnt/c/Users/devhl/.azure"
    }

Error response from daemon: ${AZURE_PATH} is not an absolute path.

[devhl-labs]

The only way I've been able to get dynamic mount paths is by having my .bashrc run the script

bash.rc

set -a
source /your/path/.env
set +a

.devcontainer/devcontainer.json

    "mounts": [
        "type=bind,source=${localEnv:FOO},target=${localEnv:FOO}"
    ],
    "runArgs": [
        "--env-file",
        ".env"
    ],