Evaluating WSL Container integration

[HofmeisterAn]

Evaluate whether WSL Containers can be integrated as an additional handler/runtime. Determine whether they expose a Docker Engine compatible API or a similar endpoint we can use, and identify what would be required to make Docker.DotNet work (seamlessly) with WSL Containers.

[cremor]

WSL container is now available for public preview: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-container-is-now-available-for-public-preview/

They have also updated the documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-container

[HofmeisterAn]

I've started looking into this. I'd like to avoid building a separate (parallel) client implementation based on the Microsoft.WSL.Containers package. Unfortunately, Docker.DotNet doesn't provide enough abstraction for this.

It appears that wslcsession.exe communicates directly with a real Docker Engine internally. I'm considering replicating that approach to access the raw stream. This would allow us to keep the library unchanged and simply add a new handler project.

Unfortunately, I ran into this issue: microsoft/WSL#40944, so I think I will have to wait for the next release.

[StefH]

@HofmeisterAn
Interesting, I found the same issue when I used WireMock.Net as name:
microsoft/WSL#41041

Can't you just replace . by _ for now ? Just to be able to continue?

[HofmeisterAn]

@StefH 👍 Unfortunately, the . is also part of the username (I hope it gets fixed soon. I don't want to set up a new account).

[cremor]

I just found microsoft/WSL#40976. That even mentions Testcontainers. So I assume that needs to be implemented in WSLC to make this possible?

[HofmeisterAn]

I just found microsoft/WSL#40976. That even mentions Testcontainers. So I assume that needs to be implemented in WSLC to make this possible?

If they expose the API endpoint, even better. We won't need to change anything, and it will work with any TC language implementation OOB.

[cremor]

So even if Microsoft doesn't implement this in their first version, there could be a way for Testcontainers to still use it?

[HofmeisterAn]

Yes, I believe we can either use a sidecar container to access the API endpoint or route it through their implementation somehow (using a custom handler).